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On Friday, the Huygens space probe burst through the orange clouds of Saturn's moon, Titan. As the probe begins
to collect new data, we are also celebrating the anniversary of another space triumph. During the past
year, two small but doughty robots -- fittingly named Spirit and
Opportunity -- have inched their way over opposite sides of Mars, photographing,
measuring, and sampling their alien surroundings. Of all the planets, Mars is the most
similar to our own, having clouds, winds, a roughly 24-hour day, seasonal weather patterns, ice caps, volcanoes, canyons,
and other familiar features. Mars is likely the first planet we will visit. Most importantly, Mars
tantalizes us with the possibility that it may harbor
extraterrestrial
life.
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| Mars Global Surveyor (1997) |
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Exploration
Beginning in the 17th century, telescopic observers of Mars, such
as Gian Domenico Cassini, William Herschel, and Asaph Hall, were drawn by the allure of the Red Planet. Since the 1960's, Mars has been brought strikingly close by an armada of increasingly
capable
robotic spacecraft, particularly Mariner 9 (1971), Viking 1 and 2 (1976), Mars Global Surveyor
(1997), and Mars Odyssey (2001). Another fleet of Mars-bound craft was launched in mid-2003 -- the Mars
Express orbiter, which reached the planet in December, and the twin Mars Exploration Rovers
Spirit and Opportunity, which landed on its surface in January 2004.
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Meteorite ALH84001
A Martian fossil? |
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Life on
Mars?
Near the turn of the 20th century, Percival Lowell
popularized the idea that the so-called "canals of Mars" were
irrigation waterways created by intelligent Martians. Even today the presence of water on Mars remains a
critical issue because, without water, life as we know it cannot exist. Data and images from the Mars Odyssey
have
revealed that large reservoirs of frozen water may be present below the surface, and images from the new
Mars missions have led a few scientists to speculate that water may still exist as a liquid in limited
protected areas below the surface. In 1996, NASA researchers reported
what they concluded to be evidence for ancient microbial life in a meteorite from Mars dubbed
ALH84001 but other
scientists have disputed this interpretation.
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View of Mars
(from Viking orbiter) |
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Mars in Popular
Culture
Mars has served as inspiration for generations of fiction writers around the world, from H.G. Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs in the
heyday of the Martian canals to Ray Bradbury in the 1950s
and Kim Stanley Robinson in the '90s. Mars has also been a central theme in radio, television, and film
productions. When Orson Welles produced a
radio-play of H.G. Wells's novel War of the Worlds, and delivered it reportage-style on the
evening of October 30, 1938 -- the day before Halloween -- he convinced thousands of unwitting listeners
that Martians were invading Earth.
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