Space Report Blog
Mars appears as a fairly bright, star-like object in the night sky of Earth. It moves through Earth's sky fairly rapidly, on a time scale of months. Because of the relative movements of Earth and Mars around the Sun, Mars appears to move backward in the sky for a short time around opposition, when the two planets are closest.
As Mars and Earth orbit the Sun, the distance between them varies from about 75 million km (about 47 million mi.) at opposition to about 375 million km (about 233 million mi.) when the planets are on opposite sides of the Sun. This change in distance causes the apparent size of Mars to vary by a factor of 5 and its brightness to vary by a factor of 25. In the last thirty years, our knowledge of Mars has only come from spacecraft missions and by studying Martian meteorites found on Earth. Some of the most interesting discoveries have been the liquid water, and maybe even life, were possibly present on Mars' surface. The central focus of NASA's Mars Surveyor Program missions is the study of water on Mars, its availability for life, its role in the weather and climate, and its usefulness as a resource for future human exploration. The next Lander mission to Mars is the Polar Lander, which will focus primarily on Mars' climate and water. Also during this exploration, other scientific instruments will study water and carbon dioxide at the landing site, and how the Mars Polar Lander will add to our understanding of Mars.
Huge landslides and large slabs called chaotic terrain are also found near the canyons. The possibility of ancient life on Mars and the Pathfinder examinations are credited with much of that attention. The structure of the Martian crust is about 40 km thick under the northern plains and 70 km thick at high southern latitudes. Mars is half the size of Earth and has two moons, Phobos, and Deimos. Additional analysis of the topography and gravity indicates that the northern lowlands were a likely zone of high heat flow early in Martian history, reflecting energetic convection of the Martian interior. Earth's biggest volcano, the Big Island of Hawaii, has a base of 200 kilometers and rises only about 10 kilometers above the oceanic plain. Mars is the fourth planet from the sun. It orbits the sun at a span of about 140 million miles. Looking up at Mars from Earth the planet Mars appears fiery red. The surface is almost exactly the same as the dry land on Earth. The time it takes Mars to rotate once on its axis is about half an hour longer than an Earth day. Phobos and Deimos are the names of the two moons of Mars. The atmosphere is cooler and drier than it was in the mid 1970's.
Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin atmosphere, having surface features reminiscent both of the impact craters of the Moon and the volcanoes, valleys, deserts and polar ice caps of Earth. It is the site of Olympus Mons, the highest known mountain in the Solar System, and of Valles Marineris, the largest canyon. In addition to its geographical features, Mars¡¯ rotational period and seasonal cycles are likewise similar to those of Earth. Until the first flyby of Mars by Mariner 4 in 1965, it was speculated that there might be liquid water on the planet's surface. This was based on observations of periodic variations in light and dark patches, particularly in the polar latitudes, which looked like seas and continents, while long, dark striations were interpreted by some observers as irrigation channels for liquid water. These straight line features were later proven not to exist and were instead explained as optical illusions. Still, of all the planets in our Solar System other than Earth, Mars is the most likely to harbor liquid water, and perhaps life.
Mars is currently host to three functional orbiting spacecraft: Mars Odyssey, Mars Express, and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. This is more than any planet in the Solar System except Earth. The surface is also home to the two Mars Exploration Rovers (Spirit and Opportunity). Geological evidence gathered by these and preceding missions suggests that Mars previously had large-scale water coverage, while observations also indicate that small geyser-like water. Though there are no live forms, yet there is a meteorite present on Earth which had come down some 13,000 years ago in the Antarctic which is raising a lot of questions. This contains a magnetic compound called magnetite or Fe3O4 and that compound is found easily on earth. It is also used in many products like video and audio tapes which are regularly used in most houses. At the same time, there are only very few bacteria on earth which can produce magnetite in the crystalline form as they are able to assemble magnetite structures which are chemically pure and free from any defects.
This type of magnetite crystals were found in the Allan Hills meteorite and that is a 4 billion year old rock which had come down from Mars as described earlier. The crystals of magnetite were present deep inside the rock. There is a belief in the scientists that these crystals had traveled all the way from Mars and were not produced on Earth through contamination by bacteria from the Earth after its arrival. The Allan Hills meteorite from Mars is peppered with tiny magnetic crystals that on our planet are made only by bacteria. On December 4, 1996 the pathfinder mission was launched on a Delta II-7925 launch vehicle out of Cape Canaveral Air Station. After 211 days in space and a distance traveled of almost 300 million miles the spacecraft landed on July 4, 1997 at its destination (DLR, 2003). In order to fine-tune the flight path a series of four-trajectory correction maneuvers (TCMs) were performed throughout the journey. NASA used the Deep Space Network (DSN) for tracking, telemetry, and command operations.
DSN is an international network of antennas that supports interplanetary spacecraft missions by using giant dish antennas. Mars has been a place NASA and other organizations have wanted to conquer after the Apollo missions. It has been several decades since anyone has sent anything to Mars. Lately though Mars has been the main focus to space engineers and scientists. This is because in 1989 President George Bush called for a manned mission to Mars (Sky & Telescope). This will cost a lot of money and effort. In 1969 people were celebrating the first manned mission to the moon. People were in awe of their own ability.
So when Mariner 6 and 7 went to mars nobody really cared because they were so caught up about the lunar missions. Mariner 6 and 7 were two flybys of Mars. Their main job was to measure the ionosphere (the shell of charged particles high in the atmosphere) of Mars. They found that Mars' atmosphere was mainly Carbon Dioxide. NASA then sent two Viking landers in 1976. The Viking landers confirmed that the atmosphere of Mars was mainly Carbon Dioxide. Nobody realized though that tons of rocket fuel could be synthesized out of Mars' air. Then in the 1980's Martian meteorites showed that the planet's soil contained a material that could be easily made into a building substance.
The two probes will crash into Mars and penetrate about 2 meters in search for water ice. I hope that they begin colonizing Mars in my lifetime because I would like to live on a different planet. Also Johnson's plan could bring back several pounds not ounces. It will be hard but I think if countries join forces in this common goal humans could conquer Mars. The first ones were NASA's Mars Pathfinder, Mars Global Surveyor, and Russia's ill-fated Mars '96 mission. Then they would begin assembly of the spacecraft on the space station. Another plan for getting humans onto Mars is called Mars Direct. (Newsweek) In the first couple of decades in the 21st century Mars is going to be visited more often then any other planet or moon.
The next group is NASA's Mars Climate Orbiter, Mars Polar Lander, and the Japanese spacecraft Nozomi. (Sky and Telescope)After George Bush called for a manned mission to Mars, NASA saw how much money it would take and how long. But the Johnson team (One of the teams in charge to design a sample and return mission) is using the "live off of the land" philosophy. Before Mars Polar Lander arrives it will drop two probes. NASA, Russia, and other countries are going to be sending spacecraft towards Mars about every two years. NASA said it would cost 55 billion dollars to do it that way, but Zubrin says it would cost 5 billion if done by companies and not the government. The surface on Mars is very rocky and has a lot of craters that are 18 kilometers in diameter and even larger. The surface of Mars is almost the same as the Earth’s surface except that the rocks on Mars look pink and red.
Mars has dust storms that cover the entire planet. The particles in the dust suspend in the planet’s thin atmosphere and give the sky a pinkish orange glow. The surface on Mars is the closest planet surface to Earth. The atmosphere is very thin and is saturated with Carbon dioxide gas. There are also canyons and volcanoes, but they are not active, the soil is very rich in iron oxide, and also has ice caps just like the Earth containing frozen carbon dioxide. Surface temperature varies from –128 C (-199 F) during polar night to 27 C (80 F) at equator during midday. The volcanoes and canyons on Mars are the largest and deepest canyons in the solar system. The volcano that is on Mars is called Olympus Mons. Because of the tilt of the planets axis, it also has different seasons just like the Earth.
The sun appears about half the size on Mars as it does on Earth. Data from the Mars Global indicates that Mars’s crust is about 80 kilometers thick in the southern hemisphere but only about 35 kilometers in the north hemisphere. The southern hemisphere of Mars is predominantly ancient cratered highlands somewhat similar to the Moon. Most of the northern hemisphere consists of plains which are much younger, lower in elevation and have a much more complex history. Mars has a low density compared to the other terrestrial planets indicates that its core contains a large amount of sulfur, iron, and iron sulfide. Sulfide is a mineral compound formed through the binding of sulfur and metal. Mars has a very thin atmosphere composed mostly of the tiny amount of remaining carbon dioxide (95.3%) plus nitrogen (2.7%), argon (1.6%) and traces of oxygen (0.15%) and water (0.03%). In our solar system, Mars is in between Earth and Jupiter. It is the fourth planet from the sun and is about 227.7 million kilometers away from it. It is the last of the inner planets and is the seventh largest planet in orbit, diameter, and mass. Mars is 72 million miles away from the Earth and it would take 2 ½ months to get there by spaceship.
Information found from- www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mars/main/index.html
