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Humans have been terraforming since the earliest days of agriculture. We've got a gallery showing some of the Earth's most incredible terraforming projects - as well as what terraforming might look like on other worlds. More »
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When summer hits the south pole on Mars, only half the ice on the pole melts. This leaves behind a strangely off-center chunk of water-and-carbon-dioxide ice, as you can see in this composite satellite image of the pole in summer. After analyzing climate data for several years, researchers have figured out what causes this weird pattern. It all has to do with winds coming off a gigantic crater, Hellas Basin, far to the north. More »
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The brave, unflagging Mars rover Spirit, who has lived on the Red Planet for almost four years, has been given a death sentence by the U.S. government. Right now, the little robot is resting on a sunny slope, waiting out the winter and preparing to do more tests on the Martian atmosphere. But now it looks like Spirit has rolled on its six wheels and done science experiments for the very last time. The U.S. government has forced NASA, this country's national space agency, to cut its budget by 4 million dollars. And that means only one rover, Opportunity, will survive. To say that this is a tragedy is an understatement. More »
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Haze-covered Titan, a moon of Saturn with a dense, cloudy atmosphere, was mapped extensively by the recent Cassini-Huygens space probe. The probe sent back beautiful space vistas like this one, whereTitan is the glowing globe behind Saturn's rings, and tiny moon Epimetheus is the small body you see floating above it. The space probe also gave up-close view of the surface of this moon, perhaps most famous for being the place where the aliens of 2001 have left a second monolith. What you may not have known is that the surface of Titan is ridged with sand dunes. Want to see them? More »
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Unusual fan-shaped features cut into the Martian surface were caused by sulfuric acid "water" exploding from underground and sweeping across the surface of the planet. Yesterday a team of European and US scientists announced this finding, which is based on satellite data from a European Space Agency satellite in orbit around the Red Planet. Want to see the gullies dug by the sulfuric acid up close? More »
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