News Briefing: Liquid Water on Mars

Evidence has been increasing that liquid water has sculpted the landscape of Mars in the past and is probably flowing, or rather seeping through the rocks during periods within salts called perchlorate salts. The video below talks about the details of this discovery.

Mars is lucky enough to have 2 small moons - both discovered in August 1877 by Asaph Hall. Phobos is tiny - only about 22km across- orbiting very close to Mars (9300km from its centre or 6000km above its surface) every 7 hours. It can be described as a non symmetrical, heavily cratered, dirty rock. Deimos however, is even smaller. It is only 12km across and orbits at 23,000 km every 30 hours. The origins of the moons are disputed but it is likely they are captured asteroids. However their near perfect circular orbits which align with the planets equator could point toward them originating on or with Mars. For more information on the moons, click here.

Mars and Man

Mars is named after the Roman god of war and has been known since before Babylonian times where it was associated with Nergul, a god of war, fire and destruction - possibly inspired by its red colour.

Possibly because Mars has a more benign environment than that of any of the other inner planets (other than Earth of course) it has received quite a few robotic explorers.

The first successful fly-by of Mars was performed by Mariner 4 in 1965. Mariner 9 in 1971 became the first probe to orbit another planet when it entered Mars orbit. Shortly after 2 Soviet probes Mars2 and Mars3 became the first to successfully land on another planet - even though they ceased functioning very shortly after. 1976 saw the US Viking mission with two orbiters and two landers. The landers successfully relayed images of the Mars surface and other measurements and continued working for up to 6 years.

In 1988 the soviets sent 2 probes (phobos 1 and 2) to photograph and land on the moons. One lost communications in transit and the other successfully photographed the phobos but failed before deploying its landers. Mars Global Surveyor entered the Mars orbit in 1997 and spent 4 years mapping Mars in detail. Also in 1997 Mars Pathfinder landed on the surface with its robotic vehicle Sojourner which was able to wander up to 0.5 km from the lander and took many photographs and measurements from the rocks and soil. Another lander, Phoenix, landed in the polar regions of Mars and confirmed the presence of water on Mars

Since the year 2000, many additional probes have reached Mars and now provide detailed monitoring of the planets atmosphere and geography. The Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity landed in 2004 for their 90 day mission. They both exceeded their mission objectives with Spirit eventually failing in March 2010 and Opportunity is still performing (as of September 2016) and has exceeded a marathon distance of over 42 kilometres travelled. NASA Mars Exploration Rover Site.
http://www.theplanetstoday.com/the_planets.html
Mars is currently host to five functioning spacecraft: three in orbit – the Mars Odyssey, Mars Express, and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter; and two on the surface – Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity and the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity. Defunct spacecraft on the surface include MER-A Spirit and several other inert landers and rovers such as the Phoenix lander, which completed its mission in 2008. Observations by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have revealed possible flowing water during the warmest months on Mars.