Earth's Missions To Mars
What if we could not live on earth anymore? What if we were told that Earth can only sustain our way of life for another 100 years? Well, this is what professor Stephen Hawking has brought to the world's attention in the last week and has gone viral. As we know it our world and our way of life is in danger. It has been talked about for several years now that our world will come to an end and even last year was documented to be 1000 years as of last November until; we would have to find a new place to support us according to Stephen Hawking. The causes he expressed were: Climate Change, Overdue Asteroid Strikes, epidemics and population growth, but the talk is: what will we do then? Where will we go? How to we fix this? Over the years there have been discussions revolving around the different planets in our solar system and if any other plants meet the human needs to sustain life. Scientists have determined that there is only one planet that could even be remotely close to a solution and is worth looking into further and performing tests on and that planet is Mars.
Mars is known as the red planet and is the fourth planet from the sun. It is also the second smallest planet in our solar system with a polar diameter of only 6752 km while Earth is 12713.6 km, which is of course around double the size of Mars. Even if Scientists prove the atmosphere of the planet is stable enough to be the host of human life, how would it be able to sustain the population of earth right now? Mars has been documented to have a temperature range of a frigid -153 to 20 degrees celsius while the coldest temperature ever recorded on earth was -88 degrees celsius at the Vostok Station in Antarctica celsius and the warmest was 58 degrees celsius recorded in the Libyan Desert.
Recently pieces of Mars have been found on earth present in meteors that have fallen to earth. With this evidence scientist have been able to start learning about Mars and studying it. Scientists have found that there is evidence of the largest mountain in the solar system which is called Olympus Mons and is a shield volcano. Olympus Mons is 21km high and 600 km long. This would then again make Mars a questionable living place since it would cut down on the available space and make a possible dangerous living environment. Evidence of recent volcanic lava has lead researchers to believe that this volcano formed billions of years ago may even be still be active today. Then in turn to contradict this con there is a pro. Mars has evidence of one of the most important necessities in life. Water. For many years Mars has been known to have water in the forms of ice, but no liquid water supply, but more recently there has been a discovery made that dark marks present on the wall of craters or hills on Mars are water. This discovery was made through the use of satellite images. Scientists have made the assumption that the water present on the craters would have to be salty in order for it to not be ice as a result of Mars’ Atmosphere. Water is a great discovery, but humans need fresh water not salt water and this is yet another problem that people may have to face one day if people decide to live on Mars.
Living on Mars, what would that be like? Well, the shortest route to get there would be 9 months as Earth and /mars are not always lined up. You would then have to spend three or four months there for them to be lined up again and then another 9 months for the trip home so all together this would be quite an extensive trip of being nearly 2 years. Now, Nasa is on board and has a goal with sending people to Mars sometime in the 2030’s and the journey is already started and making great progress. For many years now Nasa has been responsible for sending many things like landers, orbiters, and rovers into space to explore planets and the universe and more specifically Mars to increase our knowledge about this red planet. Knowing as much possible about the planet due to a curiosity rover has been able to lead researchers and scientist in the right direction to be where we are today talking about sending a mission to Mars and it has helped to perfect astronauts. Further, there has been confirmation of a 2020 rover that has been directed to study the availability human resources including oxygen. We are still unsure today if Mars is home to any form of life or if it once was.
The curiosity rover landed on Mars at 10:32pm August 5 2012. The rover was equipped with the most elite instruments for scientific studies ever sent to study a planet's surface. The rover was designed to be able to take samples from the surface like rocks and dirt and be able to sample them for further testing. The rover had an onboard laboratory that was able to study the samples right then and there. Another purpose of these studies was to see if there was forms of carbon. The curiosity rover captured images of mountain sharps and dunes around the base of the mountain. On June 24th 2014 the Rover completed one martian year which is 687 Earth days returning to Earth as it had accomplished its goal of determining whether Mars was a suitable and stable enough atmosphere to sustain the lives of humans. A major finding made public of the curiosity was an old riverbed where it first landed and later found its answer nearby if the surface was able to inhabit even simple forms of life and the answer was proven to be yes. “Yes” came from two mudstone slabs that the rover sampled with its tools and on board laboratory. The unveiled that this site as once home to a lakebed with mild water, which is another form in which water was found on the planet. Nasa said, “If Mars had living organisms this would be a good home for them.”
Up next to further our understanding the 2020 rover is the size of a car and will entice on its trip to Mars with an undetermined exact date. The 2020 rover will structurally be highly based off the rover curiosity except it will care newer equipment that more high tech and there will be 7 very carefully selected instruments on board. The mission will be to explore and assess the inhabitability of the environment and search for signs and residue of past life forms.
The Nasa website has an imagine shown that says the 2020 mission is still looking for people to volunteer to go on a trip to Mars so, sign up and help the wold determine whether we are truly on the only planet capable of sustaining human life.
Sources
"NASA." NASA. NASA, n.d. Web. 10 June 2017.