TRAVELING INTO THE UNKNOWN
ALL INFORMATION ON MARS IN THIS SITE HAS BEEN GATHERED FROM THE ESA AND NASA
Mars has always held a fascination for people all around the world. It is our closest planet neighbor and is farthest of the planets with hard rocky terrain just before hitting the asteroid belt and the giant gas planets, such as Jupiter and Saturn. Since the first observations (using telescopes) of Mars in the early 1600s, we have supposed that Mars is more like Earth than any other planet in the Solar system. Dr. Mark Hammergren from Adler Space Planetarium in Chicago, Illinois also thinks that Mars is similar to the Earth. Click here to read an interview with him!
The observation of Mars started to become real when the first robotic spacecraft began traveling there in the mid-1960s -- not all that many missions actually turned out successful. The first spacecraft to fly past Mars was a Soviet mission launched in 1962, but it happened to be silent because it lost contact with Earth before actually reached Mars. Mariner 3, the United States' first Mars mission, failed because it was unable to unfold its solar panels and never reached Mars.
Finally, the first successful flyby of Mars came in 1965, when Mariner 4 came within 6,118 miles of Mars and returned with 21 close-up photos. Afterward, spacecraft returned images of a desolated, frosty planet, packed with giant craters similar to the ones seen on the moon. Still, changes were to come as the robotic exploration in the 1970s again showed Mars with different and new possibilities. And not quite so sinister.
A view of the not so sinister Mars
Getting to Mars has never been the easiest challenge for space agencies including NASA and the ESA. The first attempt to land on Mars, by Soviets in 1971, suffered a braking-rocket failure and crashed, returning no data. A companion mission landed successfully and returned barely 20 seconds of video before failing. The United States successfully placed a satellite in Martian orbit in 1971 (Mariner 9, the first spacecraft from Earth to orbit another planet), then landed two Viking spacecraft in 1976.
Robotic explorations may prove that Mars resembles two different worlds that have been put together: From latitudes around the equator to the south, prehistoric highlands scattered with channels prove that there may is or was water once flowing through the red planet. The northern third of the planet is hollow with a much smoother surface -- perhaps the floor of a very old sea or the product of immeasurable lava flows or vast deposition of dust-bowl sediments. Credit to recent discoveries from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Odyssey spacecraft, scientists now believe a giant ice sheet may lay under the northern plains.
By searching for clear evidence of the history of water on Mars, future spacecrafts will discover many secrets of Mars in the past, present and future. Was there ever life on Mars? Will there be life on Mars in the future? Scientists continue to search for the answer.
Looking for Water and Life throughout the Universe
Missions to Mars
Mars Probes and Rovers Quiz
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