News
Mars as an Earth-like planet in the past not likely, according to new study
Many of Earth’s citizens have their eyes set on Mars as a planet prime for human colonization, and much of this optimism is based on the idea that the now barren and frozen planet was once full of water and green plant life. Warming things up, as SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has posited on numerous occasions, would theoretically bring Mars back to a more Earth-like state. However, a recent study published in the journal Nature Geoscience has thrown doubts onto this restorative thinking. Rather than a world shaped by flowing rivers and lakes on the surface, the publication suggests that the red planet gained most of its liquid water-suggestive features from moving glaciers and rivers flowing beneath them.
“The southern highlands of Mars are dissected by hundreds of valley networks, which are evidence that water once sculpted the surface… Previous interpretations of the geological record require precipitation and surface water runoff to form the valley networks, in contradiction with climate simulations that predict a cold, icy ancient Mars,” the paper’s abstract states. “Here we present a global comparative study of valley network morphometry…with physical models of fluvial [river-formed], groundwater sapping [erosion] and glacial and subglacial erosion. We found that valley formation involved all these processes, but that subglacial and fluvial erosion are the predominant mechanisms.”
In other words, as theorized in this study by Anna Grau Galofre et al., titled “Valley formation on early Mars by subglacial and fluvial erosion,” Mars’ geographical features were not likely formed by rainfall from an environment similar to ours on Earth. The planet has always been much too cold to support the weather patterns needed to be possible. Of course, that doesn’t mean terraforming is out of the picture, just that it might be a newer state of existence for Mars than we thought.
Notably, Elon Musk took to Twitter this week to discuss his hopes for making things more human-friendly, even if green will be a new color for the planet. “There’s a lot of frozen CO2 & H2O on Mars. Heating the planet will densify the atmosphere. It’s solvable,” Musk tweeted in response to a discussion on the planet’s topography. The CEO has previously explained his plans for making this happen – using nuclear bombs.
“Nuke Mars! T-shirt soon,” he wrote on Twitter last year, subsequently inspiring dozens of shirt designs with the motto to go on sale. “Nuke Mars refers to a continuous stream of very low fallout nuclear fusion explosions above the atmosphere to create artificial suns. Much like our sun, this would not cause Mars to become radioactive,” he later explained. SpaceX currently sells coffee mugs with a Mars image that terraforms when heated in a show of enthusiasm for Musk’s plans.
There’s a lot of frozen CO2 & H2O on Mars. Heating the planet will densify the atmosphere. It’s solvable.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 25, 2020
Another important part of the ‘green’ Mars theory is that it bodes well for the search for ancient extraterrestrial life. NASA’s newest rover Perseverance, currently on its way to the red planet, will be exploring with astrobiology as its main mission. The rover’s landing destination will be a 28-mile-wide crater named Jezero (translation: “lake”) thought to have held water billions of years ago. NASA’s 2012 Curiosity mission found that Mars overall was rich in material that could have potentially supported microbial life, and the Perseverance mission will collect the evidence to back up that claim. That evidence, in the form of samples, will be brought back to Earth in a future mission.
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A video published by Anton Petrov gives some further perspective and visuals surrounding this recent study about Mars’ icy vs. green past. You can watch it below:
Tesla Energy has introduced the Powerwall Lease in conjunction with Tesla Electric, making the service available in Texas. This new option delivers whole-home backup power using two Powerwall units for a net monthly cost of $35 after credits, accompanied by a low fixed electricity rate.
Under the lease terms, customers pay a one-time order fee of $100. The base lease payment for the two Powerwalls is approximately $122 per month during the first year, subject to a 3 percent annual escalator thereafter. Enrollment in a qualifying Tesla Electric Backup plan or Virtual Power Plant plan provides an $87 monthly credit.
Powerwall Lease is now available with Tesla Electric in Texas
Whole-home backup for $35/month, with a low fixed electricity rate
– Two Powerwalls, $0 installation
– Storm Watch outage protection
– One app to manage it all pic.twitter.com/oTzqc6K3aF— Tesla Energy (@teslaenergy) August 13, 2026
This credit lowers the effective cost to roughly $35 per month plus applicable tax.
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Installation of the standard system carries no additional charge. The package features Storm Watch for outage protection and allows complete management through a single Tesla application. The system supplies continuous whole-home backup capability.
The Powerwall system enables households to maintain electricity during severe storms that disrupt the utility grid. When outages occur, the batteries automatically provide seamless backup power to the home.
Tesla announces 100k Powerwalls are participating in Virtual Power Plants
Tesla Storm Watch monitors weather forecasts and ensures the units are fully charged ahead of anticipated severe weather events so that power remains available throughout the disruption, keeping lights, refrigeration, and other essential systems operating without interruption.
Availability is restricted to select Texas locations where retail electric choice exists. Participants must lease exactly two Powerwall units and maintain continuous enrollment with Tesla Electric. Solar panels cannot be included under this particular lease arrangement.
The monthly credit activates automatically once the system is installed, receives permission to operate, and enrollment is confirmed. To retain the credit, customers are required to stay enrolled in Tesla Electric and fulfill all program conditions.
Nonstandard installations that involve electrical upgrades or special permitting may lead to extra expenses and might impact eligibility for the credit, so be sure to check with either your installer or Tesla to ensure you will still qualify.
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Elon Musk continues to tease the unveiling event for the Tesla Roadster, a continuing trend that has grown into a bigger game of “When” for fans who have been waiting years for the car to finally enter production.
A video shared on X of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast that Musk appeared on last year, teasing the Roadster unveiling, was shared once again on the social media platform. The poster said the Roadster event will be “unforgettable.”
Musk agreed:
Yes
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 12, 2026
The timing is interesting because just yesterday, Musk said that we will be getting flying cars, and for years, Tesla has hinted that it could develop a SpaceX cold gas thruster package that would help the car float or fly for a short period of time.
It would be reasonable to assume Tesla’s major delays with this unveiling event are likely caused by the company’s need to break the rules and push the envelope on nearly everything. Last July, Lars Moravy, Tesla’s VP of Vehicle Engineering, said:
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“Roadster is definitely in development. We did talk about it last Sunday night. We are gearing up for a super cool demo. It’s going to be mind blowing. We showed Elon some cool demos last week of the tech we’ve been working on and he got a little excited.”
The latest updates that Tesla has given us are that the Roadster is in design development, and it did have several potential dates for an unveiling event this year, including April. It was then pushed to August.
However, there are no clues as to when Tesla will be ready, and fans are certainly getting frustrated with the delays.
For what it is worth, Franz von Holzhausen told Jay Leno this week that the event would be “very soon.”
We sure hope.
Lifestyle
Tesla’s driverless Cybercab just passed a big test with State Governor
Florida’s governor rode Tesla’s Cybercab at a closed test track and called the experience impressive.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis rode in a Tesla Cybercab on a closed test track this week and came away impressed, posting on X that the vehicle “successfully navigated all hazards — a kid running into the street, a crash with police stopping traffic, a Model S cutting us off, etc.” He called the ride “impressive.”
The stop was part of a broader event Monday at SunTrax, a 775 acre state owned proving ground in Auburndale that Florida built specifically to test autonomous and connected vehicles before they reach public roads. Standing next to a gold Cybercab, DeSantis described the car in plain terms: “You go in there and you just sit. You have a screen. There’s no steering wheel, no pedals. Clearly these things could be very beneficial.”
We took a ride on a robotaxi on the Suntrax course and it successfully navigated all hazards — a kid running into the street, a crash with police stopping traffic, a Model S cutting us off, etc.
Impressive! https://t.co/FVAkzFLz3r
— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) August 11, 2026
DeSantis paired the praise with a caveat that has followed autonomous vehicles since the category existed. “You don’t want to be in an autonomous vehicle and it drives you into a ditch. That would not be good,” he said, framing safety validation as the gate before wider deployment.
SunTrax, the 2.25 mile oval which the state calls the only high speed autonomous vehicle test track in the Southeast, can simulate rain, pedestrian crossings, hills and crowded urban conditions at highway speeds, letting companies push a car past what an early public rollout would risk. Tesla, Waymo and Beep all use the facility, and Florida’s regulatory approach, among the most permissive for autonomous vehicles in the country, doesn’t require a human operator inside a fully autonomous car.
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Tesla has reason to want the blessing of Florida and states beyond, as the Cybercab entered volume production at Gigafactory Texas this spring and has since self certified as SAE Level 4 under Texas law. Public road testing so far has kept a safety monitor in the passenger seat, and Florida is where Tesla has been expanding its existing Model Y based Robotaxi service instead, adding Miami in July and then Orlando and Tampa two weeks later. A closed track endorsement from a sitting governor doesn’t change any of that, but it does put Tesla’s newest hardware in front of a state that has already shown it will move fast on rules.
Tesla launches Powerwall Lease for affordable home backup
Elon Musk teases Tesla Roadster unveiling once again
