While the idea of sending humans to Mars was once confined to science fiction, NASA is hoping it could become a reality in the late 2030s.
But one of the key questions we need to solve before heading to the Red Planet is where to land.
Now scientists at the European Space Agency (ESA) have created the first water map of Mars, based on data from their Mars Express Observatory and NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
The team hopes the map will change the way we think about Mars’ watery past and help decide where we will end up on the red planet in the future.
Scientists at the European Space Agency (ESA) have created the first water map of Mars, based on data from their Mars Express Observatory and NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
MARS: THE BASICS
Mars is the fourth planet from the sun, with an “almost dead” dusty, cold desert world with a very thin atmosphere.
Mars is also a dynamic planet with seasons, polar ice caps, canyons, dormant volcanoes and evidence that it was even more active in the past.
It is one of the best-studied planets in the solar system and the only planet that humans have equipped rovers to explore.
A day on Mars lasts just over 24 hours and there are 687 Earth days in a year.
facts and figures
Orbital period: 687 days
Area: 144.8 million km²
Distance from the sun: 227.9 million km
Gravity: 3.721 m/s²
Radius: 3,389.5 km
Moons: Phobos, Deimos
The map shows the locations and deposits of aqueous minerals on Mars.
These minerals come from rocks that have historically been chemically altered by water, typically transformed into clays and salts.
While you might think these watery minerals are rare, the big surprise is their distribution on Mars, with the map showing hundreds of thousands of such areas.
“Now, this work has shown that when one examines the ancient terrains in detail, it is strange not to see these minerals,” said Dr. John Carter of the Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale.
The big question now is whether that water was sustained or limited to shorter, more intense episodes.
ESA hopes the map will serve as a better tool to answer this question.
“I think we collectively oversimplified Mars,” said Dr. Carter.
Scientists have tended to believe that only a few types of clay minerals formed during Mars’ wet period.
Then, as the water gradually dried up, salts were produced all over the planet.
However, the new map shows that the process was likely much more complicated.
While many of the salts likely formed later than the clays, the map shows that there are exceptions.
Data from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) instrument showed that Jezero Crater has a rich diversity of hydrated minerals
ESA’s Mars Express Observatoire pour la Mineralogie, l’Eau, les Glaces et l’Activité (OMEGA) instrument is better suited for higher spectral resolution mapping, providing global coverage of Mars
Lunar soil could be used to convert CO2 into ROCKET FUEL to power missions to Mars
Lunar soil could potentially be turned into rocket fuel to power future missions to Mars, according to a new study.
Analysis of dirt grains brought back by China’s Chang’e 5 spacecraft found that the moon’s regolith contains compounds that convert carbon dioxide into oxygen.
The soil is rich in iron and titanium, which under sunlight could act as catalysts, converting carbon dioxide and water released from astronauts’ bodies into oxygen, hydrogen and other useful by-products like methane to power a lunar base.
Since liquefied oxygen and hydrogen make rocket fuel, it also opens the door to a cost-cutting interplanetary refueling station on the Moon for travel to the Red Planet and beyond.
“The move from lots of water to no water is as clear-cut as we thought, the water didn’t just stop overnight,” explained Dr. Carter.
“We see a wide variety of geological contexts, such that no single process or simple timeline can explain the evolution of Mars’ mineralogy.
“This is the first result of our study. The second is that if you exclude life processes on Earth, Mars exhibits a diversity of mineralogy in geological settings just like Earth.”
To create the map, ESA used data from various instruments.
For example, data from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) instrument showed that Jezero Crater has a rich diversity of hydrated minerals.
Meanwhile, ESA’s Mars Express Observatoire pour la Mineralogie, l’Eau, les Glaces et l’Activité (OMEGA) instrument is better suited for higher spectral resolution mapping, providing global coverage of Mars.
Researchers hope the map will prove useful to NASA when deciding where to land on Mars in the future.
The news comes ahead of NASA’s Artemis I mission, which is scheduled to launch on August 29 and paves the way for future missions to the Moon and Mars.
“Artemis I will be an unmanned flight test that will provide a basis for human space exploration and demonstrate our commitment and ability to extend human existence to the Moon and beyond,” NASA said.
If the Artemis missions are successful, NASA aims to bring astronauts to Mars in the late 2030s or early 2040s.
NASA plans to send a manned mission to Mars in the 2030s after the first landing on the moon
Mars has become the next great leap for human space exploration.
But before humans reach the red planet, astronauts will take a series of small steps by returning to the moon for a year-long mission.
Details of the lunar orbit mission were revealed as part of a timeline of events leading up to missions to Mars in the 2030s.
Nasa has outlined its four-stage plan (pictured) that will hopefully one day allow humans to visit Mars at the Humans to Mars Summit held in Washington DC yesterday. This will entail several missions to the moon in the coming decades
In May 2017, Greg Williams, NASA’s associate assistant administrator for policies and plans, outlined the space agency’s four-step plan that it hopes will one day allow humans to visit Mars, and the expected timeline.
Phase one and two will involve multiple trips to lunar space to allow for the construction of a habitat that will provide a starting point for the trip.
The final piece of hardware delivered would be the actual Deep Space Transport vehicle that would later be used to ferry a crew to Mars.
And in 2027, a year-long simulation of life on Mars will be conducted.
Phases three and four will begin after 2030 and will include ongoing crew expeditions to the Martian system and surface.