On
Sunday NASA (national aeronautics and space administration) will take
the next step in finding out if Mars one had an atmosphere much like
our own. That is when the spacecraft MAVEN
(Mars
Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) orbiter will enter the upper
atmosphere and orbit the red planet. Over those 2 years MAVEN will
test the atmospheric conditions of the planet to find out discover
just what happened to the once vibrant atmosphere Mars supported.
"The
evidence shows that the Mars atmosphere today is a cold, dry
environment, one where liquid water really can't exist in a stable
state," said Bruce Jakosky, MAVEN principal investigator, during
a mission preview briefing Wednesday at NASA headquarters in
Washington. "But it also tells us when we look at older
surfaces, that the ancient surfaces had liquid water flowing over
it."
MAVEN
journey to Mars began on November
19, 2013 when it blasted off from the Cape Canaveral Air Force
Base riding on top of an Atlas V rocket. From there the spacecraft
went on a 422 million mile trek speeding through space at a blazing
81,000 kilometers-per-hour (50,331 miles-per-hour) to reach its
destination. That 10-month-long journey was just to get to the place
were the craft will begin its mission.
The
Martian atmosphere won't be the only focus of MAVEN. About 4 weeks
after MAVEN starts its orbit the comet Sliding Spring will come into
a close (81,000 miles) pass of the planet. The spacecraft will take
the opportunity to look into the mystery of what comets.
"I'm
told that the odds of having an approach that close to Mars are about
one-in-a-million years," he said, adding that dust from the
comet carries only a "relatively minimal" risk to the
spacecraft.
For
generations fiction writers have conjured up images of Mars having an
Earth-like atmosphere and supporting life. One of the most famous of
these stories was the Martian
chronicles written by Ray Bradbury in the 1950's. Growing up on
these stories was probably a big influence on why NASA has always had
this big interest in the 4th
planet in the solar system.
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