If China succeeds, it will be the first country ever to visit and land on Mars on its first try.
Much of Mars’s surface is covered by fine-grained materials that hide the bedrock. The above bedrock is mostly exposed and it is in these areas that micrometeorites likely to accumulate.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
It’s established Mars was once a planet with surface-level water. So with multiple MARS missions starting next year, the key to seeking out martian life may instead lie in the contents of its ‘dust’.
Once people get there, Mars will be contaminated with Earth life.
NASA/Pat Rawlings, SAIC
NASA’s InSight Mars lander touches down Nov. 26, part of a careful robotic approach to exploring the red planet. But human exploration of Mars will inevitably introduce Earth life. Are you OK with that?
We can create the right kind of food plants to survive on Mars.
Shutterstock/SergeyDV
If humans are to live on Mars they will need a stable supply of food. Earth plants are not suited to the Mars climate but we can engineer plants that are.
The true radiation risk from commercial flying has nothing to do with security scans. A radiation expert explains how much cancer risk the most frequent of flyers take on when they take to the skies.
Schiaparelli separating from Trace Gas Orbiter.
ESA–D. Ducros