Mars Madness – Walt Hickey

Mars Madness

Mars is fascinating, so fascinating that FiveThirtyEight is spending a whole month just writing about it. Given that it’s March Madness — and given humanity’s longstanding tradition of hurling robots and cameras at Mars with varying degrees of success, you know, like a free throw — we wanted to figure out the winner of the ultimate Martian bracket.

Seeds and such come later, but for now, merely select the cooler Mars mission or landmark:

Which is the cooler mission or landmark?

Battle: : Mars

Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) (2013)

Orbiting since Sepember 2014, MAVEN is studying Mars’s climate and habitability to this day.

Mars’ North Pole

It looks like pan dulce, but it’s a cap of water ice dusted in a layer of frozen carbon dioxide.