Mars

One of the most explored planets in our solar system is Mars. Scientists are exploring Mars’s surface using rovers, robotic devices that take pictures and samples. Mars is sometimes referred to as the Red Planet due to its reddish appearance of iron oxide. Mars has surface features reminiscent both of the impact craters of the Moon and the volcanoes, valleys, deserts, and polar ice caps of Earth. Frozen ice has been spotted on Mars by scientists who suspect that there has been water on the surface in an earlier period. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is working on designing new spacecrafts that will travel further in space and will land astronauts on Mars. It is further away from the Earth’s moon by approximately 48 million miles, which would take the rocket at least one more month for it to fly in space. Spacecrafts should also have the ability to take high-resolution pictures in order to possibly find evidence of unknown life, its climate(s), and its artifacts on Mars. Mars continues to reveal new attractions with each landing or orbit made by our spacecraft. A discovery that stands out among others is the possible presence of liquid water on Mars’s surface, either in its ancient past or today. Life on Earth exists almost anywhere water is found. If Mars had liquid water, or still does today, it's convincing to ask whether any microscopic life as we know it could have developed there. We still have a lot to learn about Mars and its extreme environment. The climate of Mars has been an issue of curiosity for centuries. Mars is the only planet in our solar system that has a surface that can be directly observed in detail from the Earth. Because Mars is further away from the Sun than Earth, it lacks a thick atmosphere to hold in the heat, which makes the surface extremely cold compared to the Earth’s. The average temperature on Mars’s surface is -67 °F. Cyclonic storms similar to hurricanes have been detected by telescopes. Images show them as being white in color, quite unlike the much more common dust storms. These storms tend to appear during summer in the northern hemisphere and only at high latitudes. NASA’s space vehicles have played an important and starring role in exploring space. Experienced NASA personnel could either privately continue with their work or shift their focus to research. NASA probably would urge private enterprise to make a more reusable vehicle. Many people are curious as to what has been or will be going on Mars; however, one problem with the space program is that it is expensive. It costs an average of $450 million dollars and many months of training to prepare each shuttle launch.