Home » Technology » Great milestones in the exploration of Mars: the first photos from the 1960s and the famous discovery of Curiosity

Great milestones in the exploration of Mars: the first photos from the 1960s and the famous discovery of Curiosity

One has already looked at the moon, the next in line is Mars. The red planet has long been one of the biggest challenges associated with human space travel. The desire to send a human crew to Mars has already been clearly expressed by the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Russia’s Roscosmos and the European Space Agency. And although unlike the Moon, where the date of the next landing is already set, the human visit to Mars still remains only in the plane of desire, almost daily, humanity witnesses the gradual discovery of new information about the red planet. The greatest contribution to this goes to the American space program.

Fo, you’re flying around Mars

The 1960s were undoubtedly a decade of groundbreaking space travel. The first man looked into space, the first people entered the moon. And humanity also obtained historically the first images of the surface of the red planet.

In July 1965, Mariner 4 was the first to fly close to Mars up close and take photos of it. “It was twenty-one grainy black-and-white shots,” NASA officials said on the web.

We are going

As early as the 1970s, the Soviet space program managed to get its spacecraft to land directly on Mars. But it failed a few seconds after landing, so the historic success waited for the Americans. In the mid-1990s, the Sojourner vehicle from the Mars Pathfinder mission was the first to cross the surface of the red planet.

Not only the scientists were pleased with the much higher-quality images, of which there were already seventeen thousand, by the way, but also the material obtained. “The mission provided us with more than fifteen chemical analyzes of rocks and soil and many telling data about the wind. The findings suggested that Mars used to be hot and humid in the past, “said NASA scientists.

Twins in action

The twenty-first century can be baptized into the century of Mars. All the most significant discoveries have taken place in the last twenty years. The first scalps were attributed to the twins, the Opportunity and Spirit vehicles, who landed on Mars in 2004.

“Opportunity found the mineral hematite, which is typically found in water, in one of the craters,” NASA officials said. This was evidence that there was probably liquid water on Mars in the past, albeit highly acidic. The Spirit spacecraft also provided evidence of possible former life on the planet. For example, rocks formed at a time when the red planet was much wetter and warmer.

Curiosity reports onset

One of the most successful probes so far is the rover Curiosity. The truck still works today. It has been on Mars since 2012. So far, thanks to its activities, evidence of the former, more than a million-year-long existence of lakes and rivers in the Gale crater has been discovered. “Rover Curiosity also found that ancient Mars had a chemical composition suitable for living organisms,” NASA officials said.

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Source: Youtube

Curiosity also provided much evidence of the possible former existence of water on the planet. Specifically, water suitable for life, not just too acidic. However, all the evidence to date about the existence of lakes and similar bodies with water still meets the skepticism of the professional public.

For example, in 2018, a group of scientists came up with information about the discovery of a large lake with salt water under ice at the south pole of Mars. They discovered the discovery in 2020 and added reports of three other lakes found. “The research used data from the Mars Express spacecraft, which the European Space Agency has in Mars orbit,” the Nature server said.

Ingenuity flies

It’s only been eleven days since NASA’s current mission, Mars 2020, has credited historic success. The Ingenuity helicopter, transported to Mars by Perseverance, took off for the first time over the red planet.

The flight showed that the sky over Mars already belongs to humanity. Since then, the helicopter has flown for three years, including pictures of the rover Perseverance. Thanks to the special equipment installed, the truck converted Martian carbon dioxide into oxygen a few days ago.

This is an important step in planning a possible human flight. This is because astronauts could use this technique to produce their own air, and they would not be dependent only on the supply of oxygen transported from Earth. And NASA representatives promise that the mission still has a number of “for the first time” ahead of it. Just on Friday, they planned the presentation of other milestones, which they set for the mission.

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