please keep me informed of all important issues
about planetary excavations and progressive data
that will keep me enlightened for the future. i am a senior ready to go back to finish my next degree.

An angry red planet,if we ever step foot on mars....

Marlene: Try googling this stuff yourself. You don't need a degree to do that.

Lets hope Phoenix is a complete success. If Mars was anything more like earth it would take far more than our attempst to get real understanding

The dust devils shouldn't be dangerous, and maybe even helpful; the Rovers have had their solar panels "cleaned" several times apparently by dust devils. Without this they would have been done by now. Another reason martian 'spring' and 'fall' are so active is that CO2 is vaporizing from one pole, while freezing out onto the other.... setting up global winds.

i want to know what ever happened to trying to figure out if mars can be like earth one day, it would be great because then people can have a place to go when something happens big to earth

Who can't love Mars?  Thankyou Alan for pulling this rabbit up.

Yet another soon-to-be piece of trash junking up Mars.  Pretty soon it's going to look like a salvage yard of old useless NASA vehicles.  Stop junking up the planet.

To quote the Bard:  "Hot ice and wondrous strange snow".

Now that I think of it, that quotation is from "A Midsummer Night's Dream.  I suppose that the idea of receiving images from the surface of Mars would have struck the Elizabethans as being at least as fantastic as any story of sprites and goblins, although Shakespeare hasalready  made his way into space; Titania and Oberon giving their names to two of the moons of Uranus, together with other characters from the plays.

"Methinks it were an easy leap to pluck bright honour from the pale-faced Moon" - if not quite as easy as we might yet hope, at least it demonstrates how quickly our idea of the impossible may change.

Spirit and Opportunity need those dust devels down where they are roving around Mars. What are they doing so far up north?  hehe

Dust devils. Go down south and help clean off the solar arrays for the 2 NASA rovers. OK.


Thanks.  :)

I think exploring Mars and all the other worlds is, if nothing else, fascinating. The pictures are amazing and I marvel at the progress of our technology. I do wish, however, that someone just once would put a microphone on one of these landers. Just imagine hearing the first sounds from another world! The wind blowing, the sound of wheels rolling over the surface, dust grains pinging off the microphone...I'd love to hear all of it.

Andy:

There was a microphone on the Huygens probe dropped on Titan. Check here for details and mp3s:

http://www.planetary.org/explore/topics/saturn/titan_sounds.html

I've always found space exploration fascinating. Let's keep the probes going!

Something we don't want to find...mars r us

My question is about the radiation that Earth's atmosphere protects compared to Mars' atsmosphere.  I know that you mentioned Mars only has 1%.  Could this lander give us radiation readings so that we have a better idea how much sheilding we would need to protect the first explorers?  Could we do what was done in the Red Mars series of sci-fi book -- build up the atmosphere and begin to terraform the planet?

Andy La Plata:  I have wondered that often myself. It seems like a easy feat but never has been done. Imagine that..itunes from Mars.

I keep reading articles about how humans will be able to live on the Moon and possibly Mars sometime in the future. Why would anyone want to leave Earth? The chances of something catastrophic happening is practicly zero (think about meteor hitting Earth and blowing it up or something),with the exception of global warming. As an idea, we should clean up Earth and keep exploring Mars as a potential habitable planet. But if I had the choice of which planet I could live on besides Earth, I'd go with the Moon. The Moon seems more habitable than Mars anyway.

Perhaps the wind activity is high because Mars' gravity is only .38 that of Earth's. In other words--even though we normally don't think of it this way--there's no strong gravity to "hold the Martian 'air' in place." It slides around more freely and the viscous forces are not as great at the surface or between layers. Just a thought.

Adding microphones is mostly a matter of trading off the weight of some other instrument for the weight of the microphone.  So they usually don't get included.

Also, a microphone HAS been sent to Mars -- on a mission that failed.  There's only a 50% success rate for Mars missions.  It's really hard to get things to Mars and orbit or land them safely!

I think Mars needs a big moon.  How can we give Mars a big moon?

I love Mars I'm just 9 and I'm doing a project on Mars
and it's very fun.

What's waiting on Mars? Probably all the people working in that martian base Bush promised to establish...

Some interesting comments above....

Here're some notes:   Sound propagates very poorly in Mars' current atmosphere. If you come live in it, your hearing would be as if you had a pillow bound tightly over each ear...

S. Evans: Gravity is mostly just important for *vertical* motions of air, so in general large scale winds are not so dependent on it. One area where gravity *does* figure in, is in the 'buoyancy' of warm air vs. cold. For that kind of thing, you're right...lower gravity DOES have an effect, but here the effect is to reduce the motion. A very big factor in martian winds is the 2-phase nature of Mars' major atmospheric gas, CO2. Thankfully we don't have that on Earth since that would mean things like nitrogen snow and frost! The closest we have to Mars' CO2 is our H2O; but H2O is never more than 3% or 4% of our air (and that only on very hot, humid days).

Hy of LA: That 50% number is heavily padded by soviet probes. They sent a whole string of them, all of which shared the same flaw, and therefore failed. They kept sending them on the theory "sooner or later one must succeed". They did very little failure analysis, and kept launching failures. Only 2 or 3 US ones have failed.

lunatoo: We can't.

Hannah: Excellent!

I find it amusing that someone thinks a few high tech pieces of survey equipment sent by the finest minds on Earth are going to "junk up" Mars. Come on, it's not like they're throwing their Big Gulp cups out the window.

Hmmm who really cares what is going on, on Mars? I think we should take care of our home planet before we start screwing up the other planets. Rather than waste resources trying to see what is on other planets, lets feed, cloth and educate the future of this planet. What good is knowing what is on Mars if this planet goes cold because we used it up.

Cool! At last there is something in the news which has nothing to do with "race, politics, religion, or bratty / spoiled Americans".
It will be interesting to see steps being made towards a manned mission to Mars.

Regards

I'm ready to move and rebuild.  By the way, is there any oil on Mars?

lunatoo is correct. there is no viable future for terrafication unless we set about deliberate pertebations to ceres orbit.accelerating it into mars capture would provide tectonic activity to mars and thus subsurface warming,releasing frozen volitiles.using other asteroids in an elaborate effort to cause watery ceres to be captured may take several hunderd years and without the simulation of those circadian forces as on earth, all efforts to colonize will fail.we cannot deny our evolved physiology.

I've read about some ancient astronomers describing Mars as closer to the sun than the Earth. If it once was an inner planet, wouldn't that help to explain why it was once warm enough to have liquid water? A gravitational collision with Venus could have tossed it to an outer orbit, where its water would be in the permafrost, and its surface now covered by red rusty rocks and dust.

We are not being told the truth about Mars or the moon, theres things that have gone on there since the forties or fifties if noone here has heard of Richard Hogland and also the Camalot Project i sujest googling both websites especially project camalot once there you will find out about things that are being kept hidden from the world if it wasent for wistleblowers and there are many, from everything to the underground bases already built for the coming 2012 events facing the world i dident believe it at first but i do now, nibru(planet x is heading our way and all all! the people in authority know all about it but of course they will be safe underground wont they but what about the rest of us??? the affects from planet x could wipe out 2 thirds of the worlds population this is being hidden from all of us but brave people who some have been murdered for trying to warn us, recently a top norwegian politican wrote a very very important letter(cant remember who it was sent to sorry) but go to youtube and type in norwegian politican warning letter and the video with his letter will come up, its a warning to all of us hes trying to get it public as he knows the truth about 2012 and planet x, please read it!!!!, another important video to see is n 2 parts on the camalot website an interview with George Green its about a total ecanomic collapse in america a collapse of everything according to him and a war that will be started on purpose!! apparently a lot to do with getting rid of some of the worlds population if you dont believe what im saying go to youtube and type his name in and look for project camalot interview he has already brought property somewhere else to move out of america intime this willo happen soon he said other authority figures have already moved because of the events that will happen this year i think he said, for anyone living in america certain areas will be worse affected. there is a lot of evil in this world to get what they want at any cost, oh and concentration camps are being set up for apparent marshal law in the future, about planet x u can find out everything on youtube, youtube is not only just for the silly videos people put out there there u will find out a lot of very important imfo we should already know but has and still is trying to be kept hidden from us. Paula. England

I  am 78 years old and will never understand spending all that money on space.  What for? Maybe it is why I was so bad in science in school right through collage. Why don't we spend in on something that will help us here on earth?  Oh it is interesting, I will admit that, but such a waste of time, money, and brains.  Please! Can someone give me an answer that I have been asking for about 60 years? Someone must know.     Science has done so much good.  Just wondering

I think we should send a probe to the lowest point on the planet.(ALTITUDE) The pressure would be greater and the temperature higher. Seems to me like a better chance of finding SOMETHING.

Just a note for all of you who are wondering if we could make Mars like Earth. The answer, very very unlikely.
Mars is much smaller than Earth, and much less dense, so it has far less gravity. Mars also has an inert core. There are no plate tectonics like here on Earth, and there is no strong magnetic field to protect against dangerous radiation from the sun. Both the orbit and day of Mars are longer than those of Earth.
All of these things add up to the fact that we couldn't live on Mars like we can live on Earth, but it still would make a fun place to visit.

I think it is amazing how far our tech has gone.  I just hope we don't find anything that we might regret in the future.  Has anyone seen RedPlanet or have played Gears of War.

Mars will never be like earth.   It has no mexicans and no grafitti.    All the vehicles sent there are electric powered and have no pollution making beans..

Send all the probes you want. Until they roll out some revolutionary propulsion system that can cut the travel time down, a Mars mission is costly with the bill to do this in the hundreds of billions. No bucks, no Buck Rogers.

What's waiting for us on Mars? Good question to ponder. Perhaps, if we get a manned mission there, we will find something totally new -- perhaps a new element, a new resource for energy, new chemical compunds beneath the soil, deposits of minerals we haven't discovered, or yet, maybe a new way to apply what we already have!! That is why explorers explore -- for the unknown discoveries that await.

wow fantastic article keep me updated pls= please

JC,

Perhaps when we discover the secrets of the dark matter, we could have the power to give Mars a big moon.

How abouot we ship all the prisoners there. Well it was just a thought.

Miss Klingenberg needs to read up on the planets.  The moon is not a planet. When people from Earth inhabit another world within our solar sysytem it will most assuredly be our moon before any other body, not because it is more "habitable" (it is not) but only because it is much nearer. Its low gravity and close proximity make it an ideal spaceport location, a staging area for missions to the rest of the solar system. A small craft will ferry crew to the moon (or to lunar orbit) where they will transfer to larger long-range craft, able to exit lunar gravity with many times less expenditure of energy.  Of the actual planets in our solar system Mars is the most earthlike, followed by Venus.  Mars has an atmosphere - the moon does not. Dangerous radiation levels are lower on Mars than the moon. There may be water on Mars -- none on the moon. Mars gravity, while low is nearer Earth gravity than that of the moon.  The general topography of Mars is much more Earthlike than that of the moon, showing distinct signs of  having been shaped by the action of water in eons past. I'm sure more knowledgable readers can add significantly to this list.  

JC, lunatoo:  We can... it would be incredibly difficult, outrageously expensive, but *could* be done.  First, we'd have to find a suitable piece of rock in most likely the Kuiper Belt; Second, we'd have to nudge it out of its current orbit, into a very precise tragectory towards Mars... it would have to go slow enough, and close enough, to Mars, that Mars would "grab it," and trap it into orbit.  The biggest flaw?  As previously mentioned, Mar's low gravity.  Also, if we missed, we'd then have this rather large rock floating through the inner solar system, inviting eventual catastrophe...

"Yet another soon-to-be piece of trash junking up Mars.  Pretty soon it's going to look like a salvage yard of old useless NASA vehicles.  Stop junking up the planet."

We have more stuff on a smaller body (the Moon), and yet you couldn't find any of it unless you tried very hard to land near its location (as Apollo 12 was able to do)

Stop acting as if the entire surface of Mars has the area of a football field...

I see that my lengthy comments on what is really going on in space and elswhere especially reguarding America have not! been allowed to be posted here, so the truth is yet trying to be hidden from the public again! otherwise you are just as in the dark about the truth as most other people here. My guess is that this comment wont be allowed to be posted either. Unfortunatly this is the kind of attitude that will keep people in the dark until it could be too late so shame on U!!! ignorance wont be bliss for millions of people in 2012 or sooner, or is it rather that your just too scared to face the truth???

To Lorraine T: The money spent on the space program, since inception in 1958, is actually quite a small amount compared to some of the things we have spent hunderds of billions on in just the last few years. Interesting stuff? Yes, of course I agree. And I won't rehash all the scientific and technological spin-offs that have come from it. But read Hannah's message above and I think you'll see what *I* think one of the best positives of the space program has been: it inspires kids like her (and long ago, me) to get into science/engineering in the first place.

To Nick J: That would be Hellas Basin. Atmospheric pressure < 2% earth's surface pressure. But a good idea . . .

To Adriab: And no large moon, as lunatoo pointed out. Surprisingly important for keeping earth's tilt to the sun constant. Without one, Mars 'tumbles' alot . . .
*natural* climate change (as opposed to man-made) on earth just doesn't compare to it.

To lunatoo: If only . . .

To Mike: We (people) haven't figured out how Phobos and Diemos got into Mars' orbit yet. Technically we probably could start thinking about how to get a KBO to *crash into* Mars. We're not close to figuring out how to get 'orbit-insert' such a thing, though. As far as big rock go, there're already many of those. I think it's especially alarming when we 'discover' a new one AFTER it has just made a close pass by Earth.

Alan: Jeez I love reading and responding to posts like this! Sorry to "hold forth" . . .

"I find it amusing that someone thinks a few high tech pieces of survey equipment sent by the finest minds on Earth are going to "junk up" Mars. Come on, it's not like they're throwing their Big Gulp cups out the window."

Yeah...I'm with Scott K. on this . . .

one thing for sure...and u guys will remember my words.no human being will ever survive on planet mars.

Paula, if you speak of a biblical prediction come true, then you are speaking to the wrong people. Please do not preach nonsense to a group of intellectuals (or at least those trying to be in the case of "junking up" Mars). When 2012 comes you may have your prediction, but I like most people on planet earth will be looking further to advance the future rather than dwell on a near prehistoric prediction you use to hide behind. Also, if you are going to try to prove a point then it would make sense to at least seem intellectual poor grammar and consistantly mispelled words don't help. We are not too scared to face this "truth", we are logical enough to ignore it.

Amen, Patrick D!! Amen!

It was mars that collided with earth eons ago when mars and earth shared the same orbit around the sun...our moon was created and all of mars water was deposited on earth as a result and left mars barren and thrown out to it's present orbit.

Don't tell anyone, but the real reason the Mayan calender stopped at the year 2012 was because they ran out of space on their temple wall...so get over it.

Isn't it interesting though? 2012... What will really happen? Sure, most likely nothing. But it would be interesting if something of Biblical/Torahanic/Qur'anic proportions did happen? Sad, yes, but still interesting. As far as habitation of Mars goes, if it is possible (very remote), then we are at the least a few centurys away. Once we are technologically advanced enough to get the materials and man power to mars to do anything significant, we might as well drive by it and head to one of the Jovian moons that are almost as big as mars an in some cases more habitable.

Message (please, no HTML tags. Web addresses will be hyperlinked):