Analysis of images from the HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) camera, on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter seems to indicate that warming weather on Mars may have melted ice-rich soils as recently as 2 million years ago. The geographical features that point to this event were originally thought to have been volcanic in origin, but Matthew Balme, a research scientist with the Tucson-based Planetary Science Institute has looked afresh at the images and now believes they were formed by the expansion and contraction of ice due to freeze/thaw cycles. If true, then the equator region would be an ideal place to look for signs of past life.

It's always great to learn of a new War of the Worlds product, and it's particularly exciting that a forthcoming War of the Worlds model represents a first commercial project for fan Neil Hughes. Neil has been crafting his vision of a Martian tripod for the last six months, and going by the pictures on his blog, this has been a labour of love. The model is intended for use in the rather wonderfully named war-gaming scenario Glorious Adventures in Science Loosely Involving Generally Historical Times, or G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T for short. Eureka Miniatures will be selling the tripod, but to see some shots of the model in progress, check out Neil's blog.

The stage version of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds is turning into something of a worldwide phenomena, having toured Australia and New Zealand and heading this year to Ireland, Holland and Germany. For the UK leg of the 2009 tour, each performance is to be recorded and made available for purchase just minutes later. You can pre-order the performance of your choice right now on the Concert Live website. Each 3 CD set will contain the recording of your choice, plus 20 photographs from that night’s performance. For those lucky enough to have tickets to one of the shows, this strikes me as a really superb memento of what is sure to me a fantastic concert experience, but of course you don’t have to attend a concert to buy one of these albums. The only real difficulty then is which date you pick. For more info and to pre-order The War of the Worlds CD, visit the Concert Live website.

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has captured extraordinary images of geological activity as Spring arrives on the Red Planet. The beautiful images almost look as if they are biological in nature, but in reality they are caused by plumes of carbon dioxide vaporising from solid blocks of dry ice. During the Martian winter, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere builds up an underground layer of dry ice as much as a metre thick. As the planet warms up in the spring, the ice returns to a vapour, and as it finds weak points or cracks in the surface, it pours out, bringing with it a payload of dust that forms bizarre looking patterns on the surface. More details are available at the JPL website.

Image credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

On March 31st, an intrepid crew of 6 entered the Mars 500 spacecraft simulator in Moscow. The hatch was closed and sealed, and will not be reopened for 105 days! Over the coming months, the crew will simulate a trip to and from Mars, including a landing, though 105 days is not in reality anywhere near enough time to simulate a real mission to Mars. However, this experiment is just a precursor to a much more ambitious follow up experiment, which will see another crew of 6 locked up for 520 days. The experiments are critical to the development of a real mission to Mars, which will require a crew to share tiny quarters for over a year. The psychological and physical strains this will create need to be well understood before any real mission is launched. You can follow the mission on the ESA website and the official Russian site is here.

The previously rather drab little Martian moon of Deimos can now be seen in a new light, thanks to the latest pictures shot by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE, on board NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Captured on February 21st, 2009, using near-infrared, and red and blue-green filters, the new images show subtle colour variations on the surface. These are probably caused by the exposure of surface materials to the space environment, which leads to darkening and reddening. Brighter and less-red surface materials have seen less exposure to space due to recent impacts or downslope movement of regolith. The pictures can be seen here.

Usagi Yojimbo is a rather bizarre comic book written and drawn by its creator Stan Sakai for the last 25 years. Its hero is, wait for it, a Samurai rabbit! But if Sakai has his way, his Japanese Bunny will soon be battling Martians. Usagi Yojimbo is generally set at the beginning of Edo period in Feudal Japan (the early 17th century) and was inspired by the famous Japanese swordsman Miyamoto Musashi, but Sakai has also branched out on occasion, even going so far as to transplant a version of the character into space for a spin off series. Celebrating the 25th anniversary of his character, Sakai spoke at the recent WonderCon convention, and revealed he has plans to pit the Samurai against H.G. Well's Martians. Said Sakai, "It would be set two hundred years before Wells’ time and would involve a very old Usagi fighting a Martian tripod."

The jury is likely to be out for some time, but intriguing images have come to light that seem to show drops of water that had formed on the landing strut of the Phoenix Mars lander. The "drops" are seen over a period of days to form, drip and merge down the struts. Study leader and Phoenix co-investigator Nilton Renno of the University of Michigan believes that the drops may have started life as saline mud that was splashed up onto the struts during the landing of the Phoenix probe. Salt in the mud would then have absorbed water vapour from the atmosphere to form the watery drops. The "water" might contain a substance called perchlorates, which acts as a powerful antifreeze, so though the drops may have partially frozen at night, they would have been in a liquid state during daylight hours. However, caution is urged, as it would not be likely that this highly salty water would be a good place for life to form.

Planetary geologists at Brown University have found a gully fan system on Mars that they think was formed about 1.25 million years ago by flowing water. That may seem like an age, but in geological terms it's a blink of an eye, and if ever proven, means Mars had flowing water a lot more recently than previously supposed. The gully system is located on the inside of a crater in Promethei Terra, an area of cratered highlands to be found in the southern mid-latitudes. Mars Daily has an excellent story on the discovery.