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Royal Commission for Riyadh City Announces Start of Stage 2 of Riyadh Bus Service

SPA
SPA
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Royal Commission for Riyadh City Announces Start of Stage 2 of Riyadh Bus Service

SPA
SPA

The Royal Commission for Riyadh City announced the start of the second stage of the "riyadh bus" service (part of the King Abdulaziz Project for Riyadh Public Transport) on the 19th of June 2023, which will witness the addition of 223 more buses serving the vast Riyadh city neighborhoods.

 

The step will be providing access to 500 bus stations and stops covering 9 extra routes, including the extension of Line 11, dedicated bus lane service, as part of the overall 86 bus network routes. With the addition of Stage 2, the overall network expansion encompasses 560 buses serving over 1100 bus stations and stops and a total of 24 routes; that to date witnessed 180,000 trips with over 2 million passengers.

The second stage of the “riyadh bus” expansion witnesses the coverage of 1120 kilometres out of 1900 kilometres of the total riyadh bus service, with subsequent stages to follow within the five-stage launch plan to introduce more buses, stations, and routes, state news agency SPA reported.

In line with the sustainability strategy for the city and driven by the need to reduce pollution with a focus on positively impacting the quality of life, “riyadh bus” will help alleviate traffic congestion and reduce air pollution resulting from carbon dioxide emissions.

The integration of a public transportation network plays a significant role in the city’s development that will help boost the local economy, support logistics and transportation needs, and improve the urban environment. With the aim to reduce pollution at the same time positively impacting the quality of life for people and city of Riyadh incorporating the Quality-of-Life program, the project is a main pillar in the city’s economic and urban transformation.

With a theme that builds on “more routes, stops, and buses” the “riyadh bus” stage 2 campaign covers key announcements featuring the “riyadh bus” app enhancements and ticket offering.

The enhanced functions on the app include ‘choose your journey’ ease of selection, payment processes, and live bus tracking; that will further ease the usage of the app for the passengers helping in faster ticket purchase and seeing their routes live to select the best trip options. More tickets options have also been added as passengers can select from purchasing a 3-day, 7 day, and 30 day passes.

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Chinese Rover Helps Find Evidence of Ancient Martian Shoreline

(FILES) This undated handout photograph released on June 11, 2021 by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) shows an image taken by a camera released from China's Zhurong Mars rover showing the rover (L) and the landing platform on the surface of Mars. (Photo by HANDOUT / China National Space Administration (CNSA) / AFP) CLIENTS
(FILES) This undated handout photograph released on June 11, 2021 by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) shows an image taken by a camera released from China's Zhurong Mars rover showing the rover (L) and the landing platform on the surface of Mars. (Photo by HANDOUT / China National Space Administration (CNSA) / AFP) CLIENTS
TT
TT

Chinese Rover Helps Find Evidence of Ancient Martian Shoreline

(FILES) This undated handout photograph released on June 11, 2021 by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) shows an image taken by a camera released from China's Zhurong Mars rover showing the rover (L) and the landing platform on the surface of Mars. (Photo by HANDOUT / China National Space Administration (CNSA) / AFP) CLIENTS
(FILES) This undated handout photograph released on June 11, 2021 by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) shows an image taken by a camera released from China's Zhurong Mars rover showing the rover (L) and the landing platform on the surface of Mars. (Photo by HANDOUT / China National Space Administration (CNSA) / AFP) CLIENTS

With the assistance of China's Zhurong rover, scientists have gathered fresh evidence that Mars was home to an ocean billions of years ago - a far cry from the dry and desolate world it is today.
Scientists said on Thursday that data obtained by Zhurong, which landed in the northern lowlands of Mars in 2021, and by orbiting spacecraft indicated the presence of geological features indicative of an ancient coastline. The rover analyzed rock on the Martian surface in a location called Utopia Planitia, a large plain in the planet's northern hemisphere.
The researchers said data from China's Tianwen-1 Orbiter, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the robotic six-wheeled rover indicated the existence of a water ocean during a period when Mars might already have become cold and dry and lost much of its atmosphere.
They described surface features such as troughs, sediment channels and mud volcano formations indicative of a coastline, with evidence of both shallow and deeper marine environments, Reuters reported.
"We estimate the flooding of the Utopia Planitia on Mars was approximately 3.68 billion years ago. The ocean surface was likely frozen in a geologically short period," said Hong Kong Polytechnic University planetary scientist Bo Wu, lead author of the study published in the journal Scientific Reports.
The ocean appears to have disappeared by approximately 3.42 billion years ago, the researchers said.
"The water was heavily silted, forming the layering structure of the deposits," Hong Kong Polytechnic University planetary scientist and study co-author Sergey Krasilnikov added.
Like Earth and our solar system's other planets, Mars formed about 4.5 billion years ago. At the time the ocean apparently existed, it might already have begun its transition away from being a hospitable planet.
"The presence of an ancient ocean on Mars has been proposed and studied for several decades, yet significant uncertainty remains," Wu said. "These findings not only provide further evidence to support the theory of a Martian ocean but also present, for the first time, a discussion on its probable evolutionary scenario."
Water is seen as a key ingredient for life, and the past presence of an ocean raises the prospect that Mars at least at one time was capable of harboring microbial life.
"At the beginning of Mars' history, when it probably had a thick, warm atmosphere, microbial life was much more likely," Krasilnikov said.
The solar-powered Zhurong, named after a mythical Chinese god of fire, began its work using six scientific instruments on the Martian surface in May 2021 and went into hibernation in May 2022, likely met with excessive accumulation of sand and dust, according to its mission designer. It exceeded its original mission time span of three months.
Researchers have sought to better understand what happened to all the water that once was present on the Martian surface. Another study, published in August and based on seismic data obtained by NASA's robotic InSight lander, indicated that an immense reservoir of liquid water may reside deep under the surface within fractured igneous rocks.