Why are so many nations blasting off to Mars?

For the past eight years, scientists have been driving a nuclear-powered robot the size of a car across the surface of Mars. While it’s not the first to touch down, NASA’s Curiosity rover is the last still manning its post on a planet now littered with the skeletons of failed or expired missions.

NASA rover Curiosity takes a selfie via a camera on the end of its robotic arm at Gale Crater on Mars. This panorama is made up of 57 individual images stitched together.Planning a trip to Mars comes down to some tricky celestial geometry. As the fourth rock out from the Sun, Mars takes nearly twice as long as Earth to complete its orbit around the star . That means the two planets are rarely in the same corner of the solar system for long.

Only a handful of nations have ever reached the red planet and more than half of all missions so far have failed. “When you’re on Mars you’re limited in what you can do, but when you bring those samples back home, you have all the time and power of Earth’s laboratories to unleash on these little rocks,” Allwood says.

As for discovering intelligent or complex life, Tucker notes that finding “the boring stuff” such as microbes is much more likely but it could also be a sign there’s more out there. Named Tianwen1, meaning Questions to Heaven, this is China’s second go at the red planet and its most ambitious, aiming to deploy not just a rover but an orbiter and a lander too. It's hunting for signs of water and life and will survey the planet’s atmosphere.China’s first attempt to place a probe in orbit around Mars failed in 2011, when the Russian spacecraft it hitched a ride on crashed back to Earth.

Welcome to Mars, where Mount Sharp rises in the distance. In the middle ground are clay-bearing rocks that scientists hope will help ascertain the role of water on the planet.All space missions, particularly with humans on board, are expensive. But with science on the cusp of answering the question of life on Mars, Allwood says it could push forward the development of more technology to put humans on the surface.“It may be what justifies it in the end,” she says.

Source: Holiday News (holidaynews.net)

Sherryn_G Someday there will be plastic bottles in this landscape...

Sherryn_G Ooh yes it’s great to spend the millions on this stuff.

Sherryn_G I’m not saying it is because of aliens, but, it is because of aliens

Sherryn_G Hopeful the Trump cronies will strap in and give it shot in November, they can make Mars great again, oh shite mission doomed they have to wear masks 😷🤑😷

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