The Soviet Union launched its Mars 2 probe, consisting of an orbiter and a descent module. It wasn't until 1971 that an artificial satellite landed on Mars. What's more, any craft trying to land on Mars suffers from the effects of friction as it hurtles through the atmosphere, risking burning up.įirst panoramic view by Viking 1 from the surface of Mars, 1976. Trying to use retrorockets would subject a lander to so much turbulence that the craft could be ripped apart. Mars' atmosphere is too thin for that sort of Earth-like gentle gliding, but as a craft plummets towards the Martian surface it can reach speeds of more than 12,000 mph. The Moon has almost no atmosphere so landers can use retrorockets –- rocket engines that provide thrust in an upwards direction-to slow their descent to the lunar surface.Įarth's atmosphere is thicker than that of Mars and that allows craft to glide gently down to the surface. Mars is less massive than Earth, but its atmosphere is also perilously thin. Three things make Mars landings difficult-the planet's gravity, Mars' atmosphere and our distance from the red planet.įIRST PHOTOS FROM THE CHINESE MARS ROVER ZHURONG IS OUT! /6K8RQQqjPy- Cosmic Penguin May 19, 2021 "Mars is hard" has become a meme now, thrown around during Mars landings. Yet to understand why a first successful landing is such a huge achievement, we need to look back at the complicated history and legacy of landing on Earth's smaller neighbor. Scientists think wet landslides also happened in this area, pushing boulders and other debris the size of cars to the valley floor.Īccording to Vasavada, “The wave ripples, debris flows, and rhythmic layers tell us that drying from wet to dry wasn’t a simple process on Mars.” “Mars’ past climate was very complex, just like the environment on Earth today.On May 19, China's National Space Administration issued the first images the rover had taken on Mars.Īfter a summer of Mars launches in 2020, and with 2021 shaping up to be a successful one for landers and orbiters, it might seem like landing on Mars is routine. In addition, researchers are concentrating on Gediz Vallis, an ancient valley that may contain information about the planet’s once-watery past.Īccording to researchers, the valley was created by wind, although a channel that runs through it and begins higher up on Mount Sharp is believed to have been eroded by a tiny river. Even if they are unsuccessful in obtaining a sample from this peculiar piece of rock, they are still keen to visit other locations. This coming week, researchers will be searching for softer rock. The Curiosity rover has discovered rippling rock textures, but it has been unable to drill into them due to their extreme hardness. It is made up of layers, and as the Curiosity rover moves upward, the freshly generated layers enable researchers to examine how Mars changed from an old world with a climate more like Earth’s with a lot of water to the icy desert it is today. Mount Sharp is a 5-kilometre-tall mountain that was once covered in lakes and streams, creating a thriving environment for microbial life should it have ever developed on the Red Planet. Since 2014, the rover has been climbing Mount Sharp’s foothills. “This is the clearest indication of water and waves we have found throughout the entire mission,” Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity’s project scientist, said in a statement. Sulfates, salty minerals, were believed to have been left behind as water was drying up to a trickle in the area. The Curiosity rover has aided in the discovery of the mission’s most convincing proof so far of ancient lake-based water ripple formation.Īccording to NASA, waves on the surface of a shallow lake stirred up material at the lake’s bottom billions of years ago, leaving rippling textures in the rock over time.Īccording to scientists, the rock strata here were thought to have originated in drier environments than the locations the mission had previously examined. When Curiosity first landed on the “sulfate-bearing unit” in the Gale crater on Mars last October, researchers believed they had discovered the final indication that this area was formerly covered with lakes. Where experts believed there to be a dry area of land, the Curiosity rover discovered undulating rock textures on the surface, indicating an old lake once flowed there. UNITED STATES: The Curiosity rover, which has been trundling across Mars’ surface for more than ten years, has made an incredible revelation.
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