Life and Ice on the Red Planet, Mars
Ever since we started exploring space, we have been wondering … does extraterrestrial life exist? And what is one of the main signs of life? Water. Another form of water? Ice. Where is water? Mars.
Before we get to the exciting part, let’s discuss, why go to Mars?
Well for starters, it’s close. It's one of the two planets right next to us, and its temperature isn’t too crazy cold and isn't a fiery hellscape. Mars is cold, but after all, what's the one thing humans are good at? Making planets warm! Another reason is that it is a candidate for life or ancient life, and now we know that it also once held liquid water on its surface billions of years ago. It also holds water in ice form right now, so that's the solution to the fact that humans need water to be what I call “not dead” problem.
Now, there’s a lot of Ice on Mars. A lot.
Icy Mars
Mars’s polar caps hold majority water in the form of ice. 5 million cubic kilometers of ice has been found near the surface of Mars. To put that in perspective, that's about 5e+18 one-liter water bottles. Enough to get you going, I would say. Currently, we have no idea if these forms hold life or of life ever took hold here — but we can remain hopeful. If we unlock the secret of what life may have taken place, we may even be able to discover the secrets of our own fragile blue planet. Mars may be what our planet turns into eventually after we lose our magnetic field protecting us from the sun after all.
Life or no life, water is good for our life. Instead of bringing water, future explorers can get water right from their environments. The water may even be separated to turn it into fuel for a return trip. Water consists of hydrogen and oxygen, the two things needed for hydrogen rocket fuel.
“20 years ago, President Clinton gave a short speech about an unusual Martian meteorite. It was the first time a sitting president had used an executive office forum to discuss aliens. In just a few minutes, extraterrestrial investigators were granted a legitimacy they’d spent centuries trying to grasp.” -Inverse
Search for Life on Mars
Curiosity
On November 26, 2011, NASA launched the Curiosity rover. This was absolutely amazing. First off, it found evidence of “persistent water” on Mars millions of years ago. Rivers, lakes, deltas, and more. It also found that there was a good “sustainable home” for life on Mars. This meant that they found the right chemicals for life to exist there, such as sulfur, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and carbon. Third, it found organic molecules in the rock, the building blocks of life. It also found lots of methane in the air. Methane can be made in two ways. Living organisms, or the reaction between water and rock. It found that the radiation of Mars poses health risks to humans that will be very important for the development of human Mars missions. Curiosity also found that Mars lost most of its atmosphere, as well as its water supply.
Perseverance
This year, (2020) NASA launched another rover to Mars, Perseverance. It will land in Jezero crater, a once believed lake. It's one of the most well-preserved river deposits on Mars. It would have been a great place for micro-organisms to live, and to be preserved. The mission is primarily concerned with this, or astrobiology. Astrobiology is the study of life on planets and space. The rover will answer the question of whether life has ever existed on Mars.
The Perseverance rover may seem similar to the Curiosity, but it actually has lots of upgrades. Here are some examples. For one, it can self-drive for 200 meters per day. While doing so, it builds a roadmap of the land it is driving on. It will have a helicopter on board named Ingenuity. This will prove that powered flight is possible there. Additionally, it will dig up Martian samples in individual tubes, so that a future mission will be able to bring them back to earth.
The rover has been launched and will land on Mars in February, so all we can do now is wait to see what secrets Perseverance can unlock.
Key takeaways:
- Mars is the most ideal planet to go to next
- There is a LOT of water on Mars
- Curiosity made lots of key discoveries for our understanding of our favorite neighbor, especially in Mars’s past
- NASA has launched a new rover, Perseverance, to look for past signs of life on Mars
For additional information, I have attached some videos.
