Category: geology

The planners behind the proposed, private Mars One mission to Mars are still targeting 2024 for an initial settlement on the Red Planet. That’s now a mere 10 years away. As of this writing, the field of potential settlers has been whittled down to around 2,000 from an initial pool of about 250,000 would-be explorers. While the selection process and planning continues, other objects continue to target Mars as well. Large space rocks seem to be hitting the planet more frequently and more recently than was first thought. So, while such impacts are both beautiful and scientifically valuable — they may come as rather unwanted to the forthcoming human Martians. From ars technica: Yesterday [February 5, 2014], the team that runs the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter released…