Educational resources in astronomy
Barren, cold and uninhabitable – will mankind be able to make a home out of the Red Planet?
Age Range: 15 years +
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Author: Gemma Lavender
This 9-page feature from All About Space magazine investigates the fate befallen the unfortunate astronaut in Ridley Scott’s film The Martian, based on the novel by Andy Weir and asks, could we survive on Mars?
Now in orbit around the Red Planet, ExoMars provides our best bet for finding signs of life on Mars so far.
Age Range: 15 years +
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Author: Jonathan O’Callaghan
This 9-page feature from All About Space magazine explores the work of the ExoMars, the a two-part mission that is going to search for life on Mars like never before.
It’s the battle of the billionaires: two of the private space industry’s most exciting companies – SpaceX and Virgin Galactic – go head-to-head and they’re proving to be fiercely competitive.
Age Range: 13 years +
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This 9-page feature from All About Space magazine explores two of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world; Elon Musk and Richard Branson and their mission to be the first to take over Mars.
Over a decade ago, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) arrived at the Red Planet – take a look at its biggest discoveries.
Age Range: 15 years +
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Author: Giles Sparrow
This 9-page feature from All About Space magazine explores the discoveries and photographs of NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter over the ten years it has been in Mars’ orbit.
The Curiosity rover snaps a panoramic view of Mount Sharp and the environment that may have once supported life on Mars.
Age Range: 13 years +
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Author: Ben Briggs
This 3-page feature from All About Space magazine contains two photographs taken by The Curiosity Rover on the surface of Mars, including landmarks such as Yellowknife Bay, Aeolis Mons and Wernecke. The article also includes a selfie from the rover, taken by its Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI)!
Since the early 1960s, the collective space agencies of the world have launched over 50 missions to the distant world the Romans named after their deity of war, and one of those missions – NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) – is in its 14th year of ground-breaking study above Mars.
Age Range: 13 years +
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Author: Dominic Reseigh-Lincoln
This 5-page feature from All About Space showcases the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the instrument designed to support NASA’s long-standing Mars Exploration Programme. The article details the MRO’s anatomy, which features the most powerful camera ever sent to deep space, and its journey to Mars in order to enter the planet’s orbit.
Nagin Cox is a spacecraft engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and part of the team responsible for operating the Curiosity Mars rover. All About Space caught up with the TED Talk speaker, who lives and works on Martian time.
Age Range: 13 years +
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Interviewer: James Horton
This 5-page feature from All About Space magazine is an interview with Nagin Cox who, in this interview with James Horton, fondly reflects on her missions to Mars.
Six candidates spent eight months away from civilisation on the side of the dormant Mauna Kea volcano. Astrobiologist Samuel Payler was one of the six chosen, find out more about his ‘Red Planet experience’.
Age Range: 13 years +
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Interviewer: Lee Cavendish
This 5-page feature from All About Space magazine is an interview with Samuel Payler, a doctoral candidate at the UK Centre for Astrobiology, University of Edinburgh. In this interview with Lee Cavendish, Samuel fondly recalls his experience as one of the six members of HI-SEAS V, the team which took part in a Mars simulation.
Could we all be Martians? We put the theory that life on Earth is of extraterrestrial origin under the microscope.
Age Range: 15 years +
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Author: Jonathan O’Callaghan
This 9-page feature from All About Space magazine challenges the classical theory of life’s origin on Earth, introducing Mars as a worthy contender. The article presents the theories of how the Red Planet once looked, before debating the key reasons life could have originated there, or here on Earth.
Billions of years ago, Mars had a thick atmosphere. So what happened to it? The MAVEN mission’s top brass explains how they found out where it went and why.
Age Range: 15 years +
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Author: Ben Briggs
This 6-page feature from All About Space magazine explores what Mars is really like, and the mystery of its changing atmosphere. The article introduces the MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN), the probe which has helped scientists discover more about Mars’ history and present, and clarify what happened to the planet’s atmosphere.