A Breathing Mars

A new mission being led by NASA in 2020, will be the first mission with the technological advances to bring Martian material back to earth. The possibilities of changing the question from ‘Is there life on Mars?’ to ‘What if there is life on Mars?’

Scientists have created a four step goal regarding the Red Planet. The steps include: determine if there is or was life on Mars, characterize the climate, characterize the geology, and prepare humans for exploration.

According to NASA, “The first three [steps] consider the possibility of past microbial life. Even if the rover does not discover any signs of past life, it paves the way for human life on Mars someday.”

The currently unnamed rover, while completing these main goals will be “monitoring weather and dust in the Martian atmosphere.” The rover having the technological advancements needed to extract oxygen from the atmosphere which is made up of 96% Carbon Dioxide. The rover will collect and preserve samples until they can be returned to Earth. Using a “depot catching strategy,” the rover will drill the core of rocks scientists approve; the samples will be capped and hermetically sealed in a tube.

The rover being redesigned from NASA’s former rover Curiosity. This will create a more long-mobility system for the rover to move 5-20 kilometers before needing to stop. NASA’s Curiosity rover launched in November of 2011, landing August 2012. It was pivotal in collecting the first samples of martian soil. Curiosity was, “twice as long (about 3 meters or 10 feet) and five times as heavy as NASA’s twin Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity.” Curiosity, unlike Spirit and Opportunity, contained equipment to gather and process soil and samples collected on the Red Planet.

Spirit and Opportunity were both photographic analysis rovers, taking and transmitting photos back to NASA. Curiosity took a step further with both visual and physical analysis. The new rover is only going to surpass these previous rovers, digging farther beneath the surface than any past exploration of the planet before.

According to CNN, this new rover will, “be equipped with two high-definition cameras and a detachable helicopter to take aerial images of the planet's cliffs, caves and craters.” allowing for a more range of photos and exploration techniques. It will be testing the oxygen production of the planet’s atmosphere, to determine the possibility of human colonization.

This is a new step for human exploration, but what of the public?

The very idea of life on another planet can be uncomfortable and to some terrifying. The questions NASA is having to have to deal with is-What is there is life on mars? How will the public react? How will we proceed with these findings?

Chief Scientist Jim Green, “thinks news of life on Mars is coming soon, and the public isn't prepared to hear it.”

The extraterrestrial possibilities, statistically speaking are highly unlikely that we are the only life in our universe. Even at a microscopic level, the idea of life on mars opens many possibilities as to how they are related to us, and how they have evolved on the Red Planet.

This is just the beginning, and only time can answer these questions.