Mars Essay

Humans have been fascinated with the night sky for thousands of years, and not surprisingly, this fascination has grown into contemplation for the existence of life elsewhere in our universe. In our solar system there has been no other planet more fascinating to us than our closest neighbor, Mars. This fascination is reasonable, because Mars seems to be one of the very few places in our solar system that holds the capabilities to support current or ancient life forms. With the launch of The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s [NASA] Mars Rovers Spirit and Opportunity on July 7, 2003 mankind had taken a major step forward for the exploration of the surface of Mars. Not only have the two rovers greatly surpassed their 90-day missions by a significant margin, with Spirit lasting 2695, and Opportunity still going strong at 3741 days, but they have also made some significant discoveries along the way. Following in the footsteps of these rovers, NASA has also recently accomplished another step forward for new discoveries on the Martian landscape with the Curiosity mobile science laboratory. This new rover made its debut on Mars on August 6, 2012, and since it’s landing it has made multiple groundbreaking discoveries in only a year and a half’s time. This paper is going to illustrate the most important discoveries of all the Mars rovers, what these discoveries mean for the Martian planet, and what these discoveries mean for mankind. (Missions to Mars)

The first major discovery NASA had made on the Martian landscape occurred in November 2011 when the rover Opportunity made a discovery of mineral veins containing gypsum during exploration. After closer observation it was apparent to scientists that the mineral veins were a pure...

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... are also starting to consider colonizing the Martian planet for scientific purposes. The Opportunity rover paved the way for Curiosity’s mission to discover life with its findings of mineral veins produced by water underground and surface rocks altered by moving water on the surface. Following these discoveries Curiosity exposed the presence of water in the Martian soil and the existence of habitat suitable for the survival of microbial life for millions of years. With more and more discoveries happening in such a short period of time one can only speculate when we will find the first hard evidence of life on Mars, which appears to be coming in the near future. In conclusion, all of these discoveries by NASA and the Mars rovers have paved the way for future Martian research and people dreaming of one day colonizing Mars, and mankind can only hope for more to come.