If future Mars colonizers want to survive without pressure suits, they’ll need to generate a denser atmosphere. One way to achieve this could be to bombard the Red Planet with water-rich asteroids.

Something happened to Mars that didn’t happen to Earth,” says Tutolo ... have trapped enough carbon dioxide to equal between 2.6 and 36 millibars of atmospheric pressure—potentially up to six times ...

One part of this plan would require increasing the planet’s atmospheric pressure, and one scientist suggests that capturing celestial objects from the Kuiper Belt—which are full of the necessary light ...

Carbonate minerals contain carbon dioxide, which, when present in the atmosphere, warms a planet. These minerals suggest that carbon dioxide could have previously existed in the atmosphere in larger ...

NASA’s Curiosity rover discovered siderite in Gale Crater. This shows Mars had a partial carbon cycle, storing and releasing carbon dioxide.

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and one of our closest neighbors in space. But it’s not a very welcoming place for an ...

Comets that have hit Earth have been a mixed bag. Early in Earth's history, during the solar system's chaotic beginning, they ...

Tutolo led a new study of rock samples collected by the Curiosity rover that might have answered this question. The mystery ...

As on Earth, where average atmospheric pressure clocks in at around 101.3 kilopascals (kPa), areas of Mars experience differing levels of atmospheric pressure. The peak of Olympus Mons (the ...