Why is nasa interested in mars

Finding fossils preserved from early Mars might tell us that life once flourished on this planet. We can search for evidence of cells preserved in rocks, or at a much smaller scale: compounds called biosignatures are molecular fossils, specific compounds that give some indication of the organisms that created them.

However, over hundreds of millions of years these molecular fossils on Mars are subject to being destroyed or transformed to the point where they may no longer be recognized as biosignatures. Future missions must either find surface regions where erosion from wind-blown sand has recently exposed very ancient material, or alternately samples must be obtained from a shielded region beneath the surface.

The Mars Exploration Program studies Mars as a planetary system in order to understand the formation and early evolution of Mars as a planet, the history of geological processes that have shaped Mars through time, the potential for Mars to have hosted life, and the future exploration of Mars by humans. The strategy has evolved as we have learned more about Mars and as more questions have arisen.

Perseverance's Selfie at "Rochette". Perseverance Captures a Gust of Martian Dust. Ingenuity Spots Perseverance From the Air. Humans settling on Mars will inspire us all to make Earth a better place. Technology, scientific understanding, cooperation — is there anything we cannot achieve? Mars One was founded in with the goal of sending humans to Mars to stay. Instead of trying to return them, more crews would be sent every two years, establishing a permanent, ever-growing settlement on the Red Planet.

Permanent settlement missions place even higher demands on the crew than a return mission. A first permanent settlement crew would be on Mars for two years before the second crew joins them. They would be able to communicate with friends and family on Earth, but only with time delays.

Crew selection, training and testing on Earth would be necessary to make sure they can deal with this. I can't currently ask my teacher where she got the information from as im not in school but i do remeber she got it from google i think and somewhere else. I also remeber when we did it,I did get my facts and put it into my own words : ''It seems that the only planet with diamonds or ice on it is Saturn:Saturns rings are made out of dust,ice,diamonds etc.

Tom, Do you think we should search Mars,I would like to know this as for you always provide questions that make me thinking i wonder what you would put. Although i would like to now,I believe that your answer will be quite different to mine. Thanks for clarifying this. The Hub is all about what you think - I keep my thoughts out of it! I think you're much better hearing from experts like Abbie Hutty, senior engineer of the Mars rover, and Vindita Marwaha Madill who has designed spacesuits.

Have you asked them some questions yet? If you haven't yet - make sure you do here! I think we're interested in mars because mars is close to us and we have just found a bit of water on there and scientists want to explore more about it and if humans are possible to walk on there like we have on the moon.

You must be logged in with Student Hub access to post a comment. Sign up now! Reply to this comment. It is really hot Reply to this comment. This changed in , when the Gamma Ray Spectrometer on board the Mars Odyssey spacecraft detected a fascinating hydrogen signature that seemed to indicate the presence of water ice. But there was ambiguity — this was because hydrogen can be part of many other compounds as well, including organic compounds.

The spacecraft studied the soil around the lander with its robotic arm and was able to establish, without any ambiguity, the presence of water on Mars for the first time. The Curiosity rover carries an instrument called SAM or Sample Analysis at Mars , which contains a suite of spectrometers with the goal of detecting organic compounds on Mars. SAM has a mass spectrometer that can measure not just the elements, but the isotopes as well.

This instrument has made the fascinating discovery of large chain organic compounds on Mars. It is not known how these organics form on Mars: the process would likely be inanimate, but there is a fascinating possibility that such complex molecules were formed by processes associated with life. Mars Insight is creating history right now, by monitoring seismic activity and heat flow on Mars — this will help understand the composition of the Martian interior. He helped analyse the first rock on Mars, which incidentally happened to be the first rock analysed from another planet.

Why is Mars so interesting to scientists? And to the explorer-adventurer in all of us? There are two primary reasons. First, Mars is a planet where life may have evolved in the past. Life evolved on Earth 3. Conditions on early Mars roughly around 4 billion years ago were very similar to that of Earth. It had a thick atmosphere, which enabled the stability of water on the surface of Mars. If indeed conditions on Mars were similar to those on Earth, there is a real possibility that microscopic life evolved on Mars.