Launched in 1996, the orbiter found intriguing hints of running water and confirmed that the famous «Face of Mars» was a trick of the light. (space.com)
Additionally, the team found intriguing hints that the deeper atmosphere, inaccessible to observations, supports large - scale, slow moving circulations potentially altering the temperature structure deep in the hot Jupiter's atmosphere. (sciencedaily.com)
Undergirding this new optimism are reams of data — from Earth - based telescopes as well as Mars orbiters, landers, and rovers — that have slowly painted a much more complete and complicated picture of the Mars environment stretching back billions of years, providing intriguing hints that microbes might have once evolved there, and might yet endure. (discovermagazine.com)