1.0 Introduction
Looking back on the 50 years of space exploration history, Mars is consistently being discussed as one of the most important target of study in this area. From the first mission, Mars 1M No.1 failed to reach Earth orbit in 1960, till today’s MAVEN team has been working on Mars for over one Earth year (Space.com Website), Mars exploration experienced dozens of failures, especially in earlier days. However, recently, missions are returning more and more surprising data as technology improved, and the steps of Mars exploration will never stop. In some ways, as a member of Solar System, Mars is the one that is most like the Earth. For this reason, publics and scientists are fascinated by the myth of life beyond Earth, and also
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Starting in 1960, a series of space probes were launched and failed before completing their missions. In 1962, Mars 1 collected plenty of interplanetary data, but lost contact on its way to Mars. Then, on July 14, 1965, the U.S spacecraft Mariner 4 successfully reached Mars and sent 21 photos back to Earth. This event was recorded as the first successful completed mission in the human mars exploration history (NASA Website).
1970s-1980s
In 1971, the Soviet Union launched two probes in May, Mars 2 and Mars 3. The Mars 2 lander crashed on surface of Mars. For the Mars 3, its lander landed softly and became the first successful landing on Mars, but it only worked for a few seconds (The Planetary Society). However, their orbiters both successfully completed their missions, and sent back valuable information, which are important for future research on Mars’ surface temperature, atmosphere, also the Martian gravity and magnetic fields (NASA Website). At the same time, NASA continued their Mariner program and launched Mariner 9, after the failure of Mariner 8. Mariner 9 reached the planet on November 13, 1971, became the first successful orbit. The huge progress from this mission is that it returned back numerous high-resolution images, and these images offered much more details about
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From the image taken from space, it is clearly to see that Mars has the ancient fluvial-like surface features. Thus, many scientists predict that they were formed by the action of water. Currently, Liquid water does not flow on the surface of Mars. However, permanent ice caps were found at both of Mars’ poles, and they are mostly made up of solid carbon dioxide. Additionally, significant amounts of hydrogen was found in the upper soils of Mars (Smith et al., 2011). If Mars is wet many years ago, it may be went through a long-term climatic changes. From previous missions, a plenty of olivine was found around the landing sites of the Sight Rover. The finding of the olivine give an indication that Mars may be experienced some physical weathering processes, because the resistant minerals such as olivine has a significant interaction with the Martian atmosphere (Schröder et al.,
Preview Statement: The possibility of life on mars is an extravagant topic to look at. Before that, we must analyze Mars itself along with its conditions. First, we will talk about the ice caps located on Mars. Second, we will examine the water streaks on Mars. Third we will observe if the red planet is inhabitable for humans to conquer it.
In May 1971, the final Mariner missions headed toward Mars launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida (Impey and Henry). Although Mariner 8 failed during launch, Mariner 9 went on to become the first man-made satellite to orbit Mars (Impey and Henry). Being the most complex planetary craft of the time, the mission cost one billion dollars, a price equivalent to four billion today (Impey and Henry). The spacecraft collected the first close-up photos of Mars and its moons, Phobos and Deimos (“Mariner 8 and 9”). Upon arrival, Mariner 9 encountered a dust storm raging across the planet’s surface, forcing the orbiter to delay imaging until the storm subsided (“Mariner 8 and 9”). Afterward, the satellite carried out both its original missions, to study changes in the planet’s atmosphere and
Mars has water but it is frozen in the planet ice caps and under the soil. The atmosphere on mars is weak due the very high strong winds that occur. The surface temperature of the planet is freezing and the water on the surface of planet evaporates other than the ice caps due to the low atmospheric pressure of the weak atmosphere. According to brightkite.com, “Even with the bad temperature, weak atmosphere and said frozen water there still prove that there is life on Mars because there evidence saying that Mars’s living organisms could be sub surface ("'Strongest evidence yet to there being life on Mars'"). This means that the living organisms do have a chance to live and since there is water, wind, and cold temperature, this allows living organisms to breathe and exist inside the interior of the
Viking 1 was part of a two-part mission to investigate “The Red Planet” which is known as Mars. Viking 1 searched for signs of life. It was the first spacecraft to successfully land on Mars. It performed the first Martian soil sample using its robotic arm for bodyguard and the special biological laboratory. The Viking 1 lander touched down on the western slope of Chryse Planitia. Viking 2 lander stopped at a Utopia Planitia. Viking ½ were identical spacecrafts. They were launched on different dates. Viking one was launched August 20, 1975. Viking 2 was launched on September 9, 1975. Viking 1 arrived to Mars on June 19, 1976. Viking 2 arrived on Mars August 7, 1976. They took pictures and collected scientific data on the surface. They conducted
Over the years NASA has launched multiple space crafts to Mars to gain information on the Red Planet. Out of these voyages, only 1 out of 3 have been successful and have gotten to Mars safely. One of the most famous explorations of Mars was back in 2004
…4…3…2…1… Blast off! The first manned mission to Mars had taken off from the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The second space race was over and America's only real competitor was Russia which America had beaten. There were countless cheers as the ship launched into space. The point of the mission? To find out for certain if there was intelligent life on Mars. Also the population on Earth was getting too big for such little space and the astronauts-soon to be Martians-would see if it was possible for humans to live on Mars with the proper equipment.
Mars, also known as the Red Planet, is the fourth planet from the Sun. Mars is the only planet in the Solar System to have abit of similarity to Planet Earth. Although Earth is the only planet in our Solar System to have conditions to have life in abundance. Planet Earth’s position in the Goldilock Zone, which contains plenty water, an atmosphere rich with oxygen and an average temperature of 15℃, life flourishes on Earth with these conditions. Seen on Mars is a bright coloured rust, this rust that Mars is known for is due to iron rich minerals.
Arriving at Mars since 2012, the goal of Curiosity mission is to analyze if this planet can be livable. After two Martian years, the project present some important discovering. First, the Curiosity's Rover Environmental Monitoring Station indicate that Mars temperatures were cooler than the Earth temperatures. For instance, in summer, the temperature could reach 60.5 degrees Fahrenheit, while in winter it could reach minus 148 degrees Fahrenheit. (JET).In addition, “Curiosity has discovered light-toned rocks that contrast with basaltic samples found in younger regions12.” (V Sautter) these discovered lead some analysts to believe that they could be a life in this planet many years ago. (CNES) Even if these discovering
Mariner 3 and 4 were identical spacecraft designed to carry out the first flybys of Mars. Mariner 3 was launched on November 5, 1964, but the spacecraft on top its rocket failed to open the right way, and Mariner 3 did not get to Mars. Three weeks later, on November 28, 1964, Mariner 4 was launched successfully on an eight-month trip to Mars.
Mariner 3 and 4 were part of the Mariner missions aiming to study the inner solar system and were the first spacecrafts aimed towards Mars (“Mariner 3 and 4”). The exploration of the inner solar system was a major scientific achievement. Launched in November 1964, these two satellites observed the planet during a flyby, in which a spacecraft flies past an object at a close distance and gathers scientific data, and collected close-up photos (“Mariner 3 and 4”; "Flyby | Definition of Flyby"). A flyby occurs when Both probes were constructed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and weighed less than a ton each, costing a total of $80 million (“Mariner 3 and 4”; Impey and Henry). However, only one craft successfully reached Mars. During launch, Mariner 3’s shroud did not open properly, preventing the spacecraft from deploying its solar panels and attaining energy to charge its instruments ("Mariner 3 Failure Laid to Shroud"). Nine hours later, the spacecraft lost communication with Earth, and ground control terminated the mission (“Mariner 3 and 4”). Mariner 4, though, succeeded in its mission, accumulating twenty-one monochrome photos during its closest approach at ten thousand kilometers (Impey and Henry). These were the first photos of Mars captured in space. The photos depicted a barren planet that lacked a magnetic field to block cosmic rays, which causes brain
The change to colder and drier conditions may have forced any ancient life to retreat into the subsurface.9,10 Alternatively, while Mars experienced significant volcanic activity, biological remnants may have been absorbed into ancient rocks, and some organic molecules as an indicator of life on Mars may still remain. Thus, the organic matter within the rock potentially contains information that can be used to determine the past or extant presence of life. On this assumption, if we could show that the production of new living organisms or organelles has occurred independently on
The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), also known as the Curiosity rover, is a NASA mission with the goal of discovering details about past and present-day Mars. The primary purpose of the mission is to determine if Mars once had a suitable environment for microbial life. The area of Mars chosen to be studied is an ancient impact crater called the Gale Crater. It has many unique geologic features that piqued the interest of astronomers and geologists and could be indicative of past water flows and possibly habitable environments. Since landing on the crater in 2012, the rover has been very successful and has given a lot of information about the past and present of the plant.
But just because a feature on Mars resembles a feature on Earth doesn't mean they had the same formation processes and, indeed, this isn't the first time a Mars rover has seen potential fossilized "biosignatures" of ancient biology. In 2015, for example, NASA's Mars rover Curiosity imaged rocks that appeared to possess fossilized features resembling aquatic algae mats. Though the jury is still out as to whether or not these mats are indeed evidence of ancient life on the Red Planet — they are most likely just curious geological structures after all — we do know that the planet used to be a lot wetter than it is now, so if life's ingredients are present, perhaps some form of ancient Martian biology left its fossilized imprint behind. As for Spirit's old stomping ground, Gusev Crater remains high on the list of possibilities as the landing zone for NASA's 2020 Mars rover mission to investigate these potential silica biosignatures. So we'll have to wait and see before making any correlation between the structures at El Tatio and ancient hydrothermal locations on
The Mars Rovers, Opportunity and Spirit, went to Mars to look for water and life.
The Mariner 4 mission was launched in 1964 and, after an eight-month voyage to the red planet, the spacecraft flew past Mars collecting the first close-up photographs of another planet. The pictures, played back from a small video recorder, showed lunar type