New Faces for Mars

Mars often referred to as the Red Planet, has long been a subject of fascination; speculation about the existence of â€Å"Martians† was widespread early in the twentieth century; for example, issues of Scientific American in 1920 described possible communication with Mars using search lights and giant mirrors to reflect sunlight (Greeley 115). According to Greeley (2001), other proposals for communicating including digging huge trenches in the form of mathematical symbols in the Sahara Desert; these trenches were to be filled with kerosene and signal aflame to signal Mars. Based on Greeley (2001), although these ideas were never carried out, they reflected intense public interest in Mars. Telescopic observations of Mars began in the late nineteenth century and provided fuel for speculation about the nature of Mars. Space exploration of mars was initiated with the Mariner flyby in 1965; although it took only 22 close-up pictures covering a tiny fraction of the surface and showed the presence of a lunar like craters (Greeley 115). According to Greeley (2001), the geologic diversity of Mars was finally revealed by the Mariner 9 spacecraft. The Viking mission was the most complicated unmanned mission flown in the solar system according to Greeley; consisting of two orbiters and two landers. And in 1997, Mars Pathfinder landed and returned information for a third site on Mars; these missions have set the stage for more complex future missions including the return of samples to earth. It has been discovered before that more craters are older with some around 19 km across. Volcanism is also fascinating on Mars, which is said to have lava flowing but I’m not sure if this was really true. It is also said that the Red Planet has no plate tectonics and its outer layer doesn’t move horizontally, only its outer layer moves vertically. As for Mars’ other features, it is said that weathering and erosion are observed with dominated dust storms – global dust storms and sand dunes. It has also been said that there has been past flowing water before but this argument hasn’t been verified yet. As for the aliens wearing helmet, I doubt it because as of now there hasn’t been any findings of its existence. Maybe this might be true if water will be discovered in Mars. Due to advance research and technologies, I think that as time passes by, more and more findings could be discovered. If before, images are vague and cannot be distinguished easily, today, more and more sophisticated tools are being used to capture Mars’ images. Now, Mars’ tectonic features are more detailed compared before. It has also been found out that Mar’s volcanism is widespread and more diverse and young. Despite a virtual generation of studies based on newly devised technologies of space, Mars remains something of an enigma to man; fly-by, orbiting and landing missions by increasingly sophisticated space probes have revealed more about the Red planet in the last thirty years that had been gleaned in all previous centuries, but there are still many mysteries to be solved (Kargel ix). According to Kargel (2004), they range from the question of where Phobos and Deimos, the diminutive Martian Satellites, came from whereabouts of water which once sculptured much of the planet’s surface; these many more questions will only be answered after years, perhaps decades, of effort; and because the planet and its satellites preserve much of the ancient history of the solar system, they are important questions of science. Works Cited Kargel, J. S. Mars: A Warmer, Wetter Planet. New York: Springer Publishing 2004. Greeley, R. & Batson, R. The Compact NASA Atlas of the Solar System. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.