Mars Odyssey News & Features

A sweeping landscape gives way to hills on the colorized horizon in this artistic Mars composite image.

UPDATED: 10 Things for Mars 10

4 min read

Scientists from around the world are gathering this week in California to take stock of the state of science from Mars and discuss goals for the next steps in exploration of the Red Planet. In the spirit of Mars 10,…

Article4 months ago

NASA’s Mars Odyssey Captures Huge Volcano, Nears 100,000 Orbits

5 min read

The 23-year-old orbiter is taking images that offer horizon-wide views of the Red Planet similar to what astronauts aboard the International Space Station see over Earth. NASA’s longest-lived Mars robot is about to mark a new milestone on June 30:…

Article5 months ago

NASA Orbiter Snaps Stunning Views of Mars Horizon

4 min read

The Odyssey orbiter captured clouds and dust in the Red Planet’s skies, along with one of its two tiny moons. Astronauts often react with awe when they see the curvature of the Earth below the International Space Station. Now Mars…

Article1 year ago

Engineers Keep an Eye on Fuel Supply of NASA’s Oldest Mars Orbiter

5 min read

Measuring the fuel supply on Odyssey, a decades-old spacecraft without a fuel gauge, is no easy task.

Article2 years ago

Science at Sunrise: Solving the Mystery of Frost Hiding on Mars

4 min read

A new study using data from NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter may explain why Martian frost can be invisible to the naked eye and why dust avalanches appear on some slopes. Scientists were baffled last year when studying images of the…

Article3 years ago

Update: NASA Extends Exploration for 8 Planetary Science Missions

7 min read

Editor’s Note: On May 26, 2022 NASA’s New Horizons mission’s second extended mission proposal was approved for implementation. In the two-year extended mission, New Horizons will conduct multi-disciplinary observations contributing to important science for NASA’s Planetary Science, Heliophysics and Astrophysics…

Article3 years ago

NASA’s Mars Fleet Lies Low With Sun Between Earth and Red Planet

3 min read

The missions will continue collecting data about the Red Planet, though engineers back on Earth will stop sending commands to them until mid-October. NASA will stand down from commanding its Mars missions for the next few weeks while Earth and…

Article3 years ago

NASA’s Fermi Spots a Supernova’s ‘Fizzled’ Gamma-Ray Burst

7 min read

On Aug. 26, 2020, NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope detected a pulse of high-energy radiation that had been racing toward Earth for nearly half the present age of the universe. Lasting only about a second, it turned out to be…

Article3 years ago

NASA’s Odyssey Orbiter Marks 20 Historic Years of Mapping Mars

6 min read

For two decades, the longest-lived spacecraft at the Red Planet has helped locate water ice, assess landing sites, and study the planet’s mysterious moons. NASA’s 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft launched 20 years ago on April 7, making it the oldest…

Article4 years ago

NASA Missions Unmask Magnetar Eruptions in Nearby Galaxies

10 min read

On April 15, 2020, a brief burst of high-energy light swept through the solar system, triggering instruments on several NASA and European spacecraft. Now, multiple international science teams conclude that the blast came from a supermagnetized stellar remnant known as…

Article4 years ago