Since the beginning of humanity, we have always wondered about our place in the universe. In the pursuit of this cause, humans have found their way to fly among stars and discover new places in the universe. Recent technological advancements have allowed us to uncover the deepest darkest corners of space.
There are about eight planets in our solar system and Mars is the fourth one. It comes right after Earth so it is our close neighbour. It has always been associated with a strange mystery and has been the centre of Astronomers' attention for centuries now.
It has a red-coloured crust, thin atmosphere, huge mountains and volcanoes. Astronomers have concluded that Mars used to have liquid water and an atmosphere which disappeared throughout time. Many people also believe that life existed on Mars millions of years ago and it migrated to another solar system.
Due to recent catastrophic changes on Earth such as global warming, climate change, storms, hurricanes and earthquakes humanity would soon have to look out for a new planet that they could call home.
Scientists have been studying the red planets for years intending to send humans there. But the question arises can we survive the harsh climate of Mars? Can we find a solution to all our problems regarding sustaining life or the red planet shortly?
Astronomers have been interested in the red planet since Galileo Galilei first observed it with his telescopes. Through modern scientific equipment, astronomers have discovered that Mars has polar ice caps. Not only this but the data also points out something else; long chains of canals which indicate that Mars had liquid water flowing on its surface millions of years ago.
The first close observations occurred in the 1960s when robotic equipment began observing the red planet. Following that many other missions were sent to observe Mars very closely in hope of finding traces of life or an ancient civilization that may have lived on Mars. But these missions revealed that Mars is a barren planet with no signs of life at all.
The soviet union also launched two missions to study the planet but failed to study the planet because the conditions were too harsh. The first successful landing on Mars took place on July 20 1976. This mission was sent by NASA by the name of Viking 1. This lander took the very first pictures of the martian surface and also took the first coloured photo of the Martian surface. But the disappointment was there were no signs of life or civilization there. This mission found the biggest volcano Olympus Mons on the red planet and also the deepest valleys of the red planet. The volcano is about 27 kilometres in height which is three times the size of the biggest planet on Earth, Mount Everest.
Later on, two more missions were sent in 1996 one by the name Pathfinder and the other by the name of Surveyor. There was a rover included in the Mars pathfinder mission by the name of the sojourner which successfully landed on Mars. The rover was about 25 pounds heavy and was 100 meters. It spent 83 days in total observing the red planet. In 2001 NASA launched the Mars Odyssey probe which found out that there is frozen water beneath the Martian surface. This rover has been observing Mars since 2001.
In 2003 Mars was passing the closest to Earth in the past 60,000 years and NASA took advantage of this and launched two rovers with the names Spirit and Opportunity. These rovers studied two different regions of the red planet and found signs of liquid water. These rovers were to last a few months but luckily they lasted years and completed their life span in 2019.
In 2008 NASA sent the Phoenix mission to Mars in search of water. It successfully ended its journey in 2010 and successfully collected a lot of data. In 2012 NASA sent curiosity rovers to observe the martian rocks and geological phenomena that took place millions of years ago. In September 2012 the curiosity rover found an ancient river bed on the Martian surface which showed that there were flowing rivers of liquid water on Mars once upon a time.
The legacy continued and NASA and other space agencies are sending probes and missions to Mars.
But why all of this is necessary if there is no life on Mars?
Scientists have bigger plans in their minds for the red planet. They want to terraform the planet so it could sustain human life on it. But this process can take up to thousands of years and is a very costly process overall. It's the closest planet to Earth and is the only humanities, next option for a home. Evidence suggests that millions of years ago Mars had a thicker atmosphere and there are chances that it had oxygen also. But over time due to cosmic rays, the atmosphere disappeared and the water also evaporated.
Spacex CEO Elon Musk suggests that there is a way through which we can generate an atmosphere on Mars and then it would be able to sustain water in liquid form and maybe life. The problem with his plan is that there is a lot of carbon dioxide on Mars. His plan to counter this is by nuking the poles of Mars so it would release enough gases that could potentially result in regenerating an atmosphere on Mars. His company SpaceX plans to send humans to Mars in 2024.
Going to Mars is going to be a very challenging task and we are going to face a lot of problems in the process but there is always room for hope.
