TORONTO – It may not be the final frontier, but it’s been an historic step in space exploration for humanity, and NASA is celebrating it.
It’s been 10 years since twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity touched down on the Martian surface, beginning what has become a new age in space exploration.
The life expectancy for the twin rovers (officially called Mars Exploration Rovers or MERS), was just 90 sols (a sol is a Martian day).
It’s now 2014 and Opportunity still continues to operate. Spirit, unfortunately, stopped functioning on March 22, 2010. That’s quite a lease on life.
The National Air and Space Museum marked the anniversary on Jan. 7. On Jan. 16, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory — the arm that is responsible for the rovers — will host a public celebration at the California Institute of Technology. Further celebrations will continue throughout the month of January.
What have you done for me lately?
NASA first began exploring the Martian surface with two Viking probes in 1976. In 1997, Pathfinder trundled across its surface.
It’s not just a blind fascination with Mars that astronomers and scientists hold. It’s a need to explore the red planet and learn about its history.
After a seven-month journey to Mars, the rovers landed on two very different parts of the planet.
READ MORE: Mars One takes 75 Canadians in 2nd round of selections for one-way mission
Spirit landed on Jan. 3, 2004; Opportunity landed on Jan. 24.
Within two months of landing, Opportunity’s scientific instruments found evidence in the rocks that at one time, salty water once flowed gently over the area called Meridiani Planum.
Spirit also supported the theory that the area it was exploring — halfway around the planet, in Gusev Crater — also supported a wet environment.
While many may think that these discoveries don’t lend themselves to future exploration, the opposite is true: their success helped pave the way for Curiosity, which landed on Mars on Aug. 6, 2012.
Curiosity, much larger, with a multitude of scientific instruments, is helping scientists to understand what would be needed to live on Mars. Curiosity has found that the dirt on Mars contains water, which may mean that future spacefarers could use it to live on the planet. Among other major scientific discoveries, the rover has also helped scientists understand radiation both in the journey to Mars as well as on the surface.
Why does Mars hold such fascination for us?
For hundreds of years, the red planet that has moved across our sky has held a particular fascination for humanity.
In 1877, Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli observed something on Mars that he called canali. The word was translated incorrectly in English to “canals” rather than “channels” and helped foster the belief — or hope — that the channels were created by intelligent beings on Mars. Later, in the early 1900s, Percival Lowell would help popularize that idea.
But in 1965, all hope of encountering Martians vanished when the Mariner 4 spacecraft flew by the planet, observing a lifeless surface.
Still — perhaps due to the fact that Mars is relatively close to Earth, is quite similar in size, and is a rocky planet like our own — Mars held a particular pull on humanity.
Mars will certainly be the first planet humanity colonizes. Whether it’ll be in our lifetime, or our children’s is yet to be seen.
But NASA has made it clear that it has its sights set on Mars.
“All of this will pave the way for humans to travel to Mars in the 2030s,” NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden said while marking the success of the Mars program. “Science and exploration are working together to make this historic feat possible, and we’re developing technologies right now, including the Space Launch System and the Orion multipurpose crew vehicle, to take astronauts once again to deep space.”
Comments