Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

If you’re looking for some Red Planet real estate, there’s a new tool that could help you pick out the very best spot. Caltech scientists have created a nearly complete global map of Mars at an extremely high resolution of 5 m (16.4 ft) per pixel.

After spending over 12 years studying Mars, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)​ is getting some preventative maintenance to allow it to remain in service until the mid-2020s.

Mars may not be as dry as it looks. NASA and the USGS have used MRO instruments to analyze the vertical structure and thickness of buried ice sheets, which preserve a detailed record of the Red Planet’s past and could provide future human explorers with an easily-accessible water supply.

In 2011 the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) spotted dark streaks in the dust that appear in summer and vanish in winter, hinting at the influence of flowing water. On closer inspection however, a new NASA report suggests the answer may not be so simple.

If images of the Earth from the Moon have become a little ho-hum, how about an image of the Earth and the Moon from Mars? Courtesy of the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), we have a new view of our home planet and its nearest neighbor.

Mars is home to many phenomena that we'd never see on our home planet, some of which are the networks of veiny troughs found around its South Pole. These "spiders" are usually thousands of years old, but now for the first time a team of scientists seem to have caught some in their early stages.

The name of the Martian region of Utopia Planitia roughly translates as "plains of paradise." It turns out it could be a paradise indeed for astronauts, as a frozen ice deposit holding as much water as Lake Superior, the largest of North America's Great Lakes, was recently found beneath the soil.

As the search for life on Mars moves further underground, researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have found another promising place to look: a strange formation that could be the remains of an ancient “ice cauldron” that would have provided a warm, chemical-rich, life-friendly environment.

Fresh observations of surface features known as recurring slope lineae (RSL) appear to have confirmed the presence of liquid water on Mars. The evidence of surface water has implications for future manned mission to the Red Planet.

NASA's InSight Mars lander isn't scheduled to touchdown for over a year, but the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is already moving into a new orbit to provide communications support during the landing.

Lost since 2003, the UK-led Beagle-2 Mars lander has finally been discovered on the Martian surface by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). No signal was received from the lander following its expected landing time, and the robotic explorer was feared destroyed.

After a dramatic, one-in-a-million-years close encounter between Mars and comet Siding Spring on Sunday, all five functioning US Mars probes survived, and are returning valuable data on the comet.