Mars Also Known as the Red Planet, The fourth planet from the sun. Named for the Roman God of War. It has two satellites known appropriately as Phobos and Demos (Fear and Panic).
Above Images of the two Martian Moons.
The Shadow of Phobos passes over Mars surface
Mars has held the fascination of man for many years dating back to the ancient gGreeks and Romans, but first really cmae to man's imagination in the Early 20th Century when Percival Lowell proclaimed he had seen canals on Mars, and speculated about life there.
Later photos have not shown those canals and no proven signs of civilized life, but recent discoveries of a meteor in Antartica have hinted at the possible existence of primitive life on Mars and even the possibility that life mon Earth may have hitched a ride here from Mars on a meteor.
The Matrian Meteor
Possible bacterial structures from the Martian Meteor
Earlier studies of Mars were made i the late 60's and early 70's by the Mariner probes which orbited the planet or took fly by photos on their way to other locations. Then the first soft landing was acheived by the Viking Probes of the early to mid 70's. My friend Mike, kept waiting for a Martian rabbit to run by the camera, and one of my more cynical friends described Viking I as a typical tourist, coming all that distance and the first thing it does is take a picture of it's foot (smile). Seriously though, it was a marvelous acheivement (second at that time only to the Apollo Moon landings) considering that the on-board computers at that time had little more memory than a current day Game Boy. Mars was pretty much ignored for the next 25 years until July 4, 1997 when the Pathfinder probe with the Sourjourner rover landed and caught all of our imaginations.
Pathfinder Landing site from Pathfinder
Finally, Mars has the largest volcanic mountain in the current Known solar system, Olympus Mons
Findings of ancient martian microbial fossils in meteorites and liquid water related features on Mars' surface are currently controversial issues. But one thing long established by space-based observations of the Red Planet is the presence of volcanos, as Mars supports some of the largest volcanos in the solar system. This synthetic color picture recorded in March by the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft shows two of them, Ceraunius Tholus (leftmost) and Uranius Tholus. Found north of the Tharsis region of truly large martian volcanos, these are actually two relatively small volcanos, Ceraunius Tholus being only about the size of the Big Island of Hawaii on planet Earth. Impact craters which overlay the volcanic martian terrain indicate that these volcanos are themselves ancient and inactive. North is to the right and the scene is illuminated by sunlight from the top left. A light region of dust deposited by recent global dust storms lies on the lower left flank of Ceraunius Tholus, whose summit crater is about 25 kilometers across.
There is currently a new probe on its way to Mars, Mars Odyssey which is scheduled to arrive in October of this year (2001), and currently doing well on its voyage. Hopefully it will have better sucess than the missions since Pathfinder, and can lead to more future probes and eventually man landings and colonization there. There are several ideas for these missions all include terra-forming the planet to make it more habitable for human habitation. This is an interesting concept, but given the possibility of primitive preexisting life there (either bacterial or other microbial) what might we find when we get there once oxygen levels and carbon dioxide levels begin to arise? I would be interested in the thoughts of othersand maybe we can start a simulating discussion on the message board. Please share your thoughts.rs,
For a new concept in manned missions to mars, follow the following link:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/621237.asp?pne=msn
The Latest Martain News
Mars Odyssee made it! See the following link
Mars Odyssee finds lots of ice on Mars. http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/03/01/mars.odyssey.briefing/index.html
