Exploring 'MARS-The Red Planet

 Exploring 'MARS-The Red Planet

"Since ancient time, we earthlings have believed that 'Mars', the mysterious red planet carried war, pestilence and the need of human sacrifice. The Romans named 'Mars' as their 'God of war'. The mystery possessed by this planet has always incited the curiosity of earthlings with an imaginary belief that there also exists an alien civilization like on Earth. Several movies fed on this idea, in which Green Martians with peculiar head and dressing, are seen trying to take over the Earth.

Until the sixties, the conception of tellurians about the outer space was  upto the movies, picturization or upto what the scientists could see  through  telescope, etc. Then began the space race and Mars' became a favourite target  for 'scientists' curiosity. The beginning of space research era helped mankind  in exploring the hidden secrets of the universe. The USA and the erstwhile  USSR, pioneered the space exploration with several of their space crafts and  satellites sent on expeditions to study the Earth's atmosphere, weather, aceans  as well as Sun and other celestial bodies like the Moon etc. All such  expeditions brought back invaluable informations about the evolution and  history of Earth, Moon and other planets and celestial bodies. 

 Mars and Earth have almost equal rotational period at the axis. Mars takes  24 hours, 37 minutes, in rotating upon its axis, thus a Mars day is identical to  an Earth day. While Earth takes approximately 365 days to rotate round the  Sun, the Mars takes 687 days to make such one trip, because of its eccentric  orbit. The gravity of Mars is one-third of Earth's, and atmosphere at Mars is  much thinner than that at Earth, as ench the atmospheric pressure at 'Mars' is  just 1% that of Earth.  

As of 2012, there is one rover on the surface of Mars beaming signals back  to Earth, i.e., opportunity. Three other orbiters named Mars Odyssey, Mars  Express and Mars Reconnaissance orbiter, are currently surveying the Red  Planet and another rover, Curiosity, is en-route. 

 Exploring Mystery of Mars  

1. In 1962, the erstwhile USSR launched Mars 1, which successfully left  Earth's orbit but failed as the communication with the craft was  lost en-route.  

2. The USA's craft Mariner-3 launched in 1964, also failed when its solar  panels could not be opened.  

3. The same year USA launched another space craft Marine-4 that sent 22  close up photo of 'Mars' showing therein a cratered, desert surface.  

4. The USA again launched Mariner-6 in 1969, that passed within 3400 kms of the planet and sent, video of the equatorial regions as well as surface temperature and atmospheric pressure measurements of the planet.          

5. The USA again launched Mariner-7 in the same year of 1969 that passed  over the Southern hemisphere and sent back about 200 photos. So far all  the Mariners launched by USA were flybys and none were meant to land  at the surface of the planet. 

 6. In 1971, USSR, launched an orbiter/lander Mars-2, but it crashed during  a dust storm. 

 7. Again in the same year USSR launched Mars-3 that made the first  successful landing on Mars, transmitted 20 seconds of data until contact  was lost in dust storms.  

8. The USA's Mariner-9, launched in 1971, became the first US space craft  to orbit 'Mars'. It sent back the first high resolution images of Martian  Moons-Phobos and Deimos. The Mariner-9's important discovery was  the presence of huge volcanoes on Mars, larger than any in the solar  system, so far known. The Mariner-9 also recorded hydrogen escaping  the planet in such a huge amount, that indicates that thousands of  gallons of water evaporating every day. Mariner-9 also found that the  atmosphere of Mars is 100 times thinner than that of Earth, composed  mainly of carbon di-oxide, carbon mono-oxide, water vapours and a little  oxyzen. During this period, USSR also sent three more space crafts.  Mars-4, in 1973, Mars-6 in the same year and Mars-7 again in 1973, but  none had succeeded due to one or more technical reasons.  

9. Viking-1 and Viking-2 by USA in 1976, the Viking-1 and Viking-2 space  crafts sent by USA were more successful. Viking-1, became the first US  orbiter lander to land on the Mars. It returned thousands of images and  discovered the presence of water ice in the polar cap. While Viking-2,  sent in the same year detected the presence of argon and nitrogen in the  atmosphere of Mars. It also sent thousands of images and found the sky  of the Mars, blue, and soil red, and rocks greyish green and black colour.  Scientists who analysed data received from Viking opined that though  Mars would have lost much of its water, it still has plenty in frozen form  and Mars is much colder than the Earth. The average temperature on  Mars was found to be below the freezing point of water.  

None of the Viking scientists could opine about the existence of life on  Mars. Scientists concluded that more ultraviolet light reaches the  martian surface than Earth is because Earth's ozone shield blocks much  of the ultraviolet rays. Viking's striking colour photographs proved it  without doubt that the planet is strikingly red and its dust, rocks and  boulders all are of varying shaded colours. In 1977, one orbiter passed  90 kms of Phobos, one of the Moons of Mars, and sent close up  rather than spherical and have no identical colour of Mars. After these  two Viking missions of USA, the USSR launched Phobos L-orbiter/ lander  in 1988 to investigate the Moon Phobos, but again the mission failed due  to a bad command that caused the space craft to point its solar panels  away from the Sun. The USA again sent Mars observer in 1992, that to  conduct high and low resolution imaging of the planet, surface  investigation and weather analysis, but on 21st August, 1993, its  communication with Earth was lost, just before it could enter into the  orbit of Mars. One thing the Viking mission  could not achieve was  movement, although it had robotic arms that could reach out and scoop  up soil.  

10. The space craft pathfinder launched. from Cape Canaveral on  4th December, 1996, landed on Mars on 4th July, 1997. The pathfinder  sent back, detailed photographs of a harsh landscape that bears signs of  availability of water, a basic requirement for life. The pathfinder and  its rover so journer, provided a wealth of information on the rocks, soils  and atmosphere on Mars. The lander returned the first live pictures of  52  the planet's topography and its tiny rover explored a variety of rocks  and analyzed their mineral composition with its cameras and on board  X-ray spectrometer analysis indicated the presence of oxidised iron and  rusting of surface of Mars. Images and various data sent by pathfinder  gave the strongest evidence that the Red Planet had an abundance of  water millions of years ago. NASA launched the Mars global surveyor  on 7th November, 1996. The space craft began its mapping operations  on 27th March, 1998, discovered the clear proof of an ancient  hydrothermal system near the equator. It means that a thicker  atmosphere had existed at Mars in early history.  

11. The rover though sent very important information to the Earth, yet it  did not have much of a scientific instruments with it and could not move  far from its lander. The latest MER robots sent on Mars was designed as  robotic geologists. The instruments and equipments packed into the  rovers were primarily designed to investigate the rocks. It is a much  larger vehicle, more than 180 kg in weight and able to travel tens of  meters everyday and carries an entire set of scientific instruments with  it.  

12. In 2001, NASA's Mars Odyssey used spectrometers and imagers to  successfully detect presence of large amounts of hydrogen and indicated  that there are vast deposits of water ice in the upper three meters of  Mars' soil with 60° latitude of the South pole.  

13. In 2003, the ESA's Mars Express was launched. It carried a digging  device and smallest mass spectrometer. Though, contact to its lander  was lost within months, Mars Express orbiter continued to provide  information and confirmed the presence of water ice and carbondioxide  ice at the planet's South pole which had previously been confirmed by  NASA at the North pole.  

14. Mars Reconnaissance orbiter was launched in 2005 and it is performing  varied functions such as daily monitoring of martian weather and  surface conditions, searching for future landing sites, sending data at  an unprecedented bilrate and can defect water, ice and minerals on and  below the surface using sophisticated instruments  such as HIRISE  Camera, CTX camera, CRISM and SHARAD.  

15. NASA's Dawn spacecraft passed by Mars in 2009, using its gravity to  change direction and velocity.    

16. In 2011, NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) named 'Curiosity' was  launched which will probe biological activity on the planet. Roncomo'  Fobos-Grunt lander was also started the same year but it fell back to  Earth.  

We don't know so far, when we could able to send a human being to Mars.  The failures of various missions sent to Mars, the huge cost involved in sending  space crafts, are some of the reasons for hesitation in wending human beings at  present. So nothing like this has ever been attempted and it would take a  number of test missions to prove out the concept.  

The quest for knowing the mystery of 'Mars' is insatiable so far, yet the  quest is going on each mission brings to us more and more information and  varied knowledge about this Red Planet, and we hope to find more surprises on  Mars in the times to come.