Red's Planet: Book 1

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Dive into this stunning map of different regions on the Red Planet, courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey.

NASA Mars Exploration

NASA’s Mars Pathfinder mission, launched in 1996, put the first free-moving rover—called Sojourner—on the planet. Its successors include the rovers Spirit and Opportunity, which explored the planet for far longer than expected and returned more than 100,000 images before dust storms obliterated their solar panels in the 2010s. Yet despite this, many questions remain unanswered. What caused the marks and scars on the planet’s surface? There are signs of ancient floods on Mars, but now water mostly exists in icy dirt and thin clouds. On some Martian hillsides, there is evidence of liquid salty water in the ground. Often called the ‘Red Planet’, Mars has been in the news a lot recently with three separate missions being sent to explore the planet’s surface in 2021. The air around Mars does not have much oxygen. People need oxygen to breathe. The air is mostly a gas called carbon dioxide.

Why explore Mars

The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet. Also with an eye on future Red Planet explorations, the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment ( MOXIE) technology demonstration will attempt to manufacture oxygen out of thin air – the Red Planet’s tenuous and mostly carbon dioxide atmosphere. The rover’s Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer ( MEDA) instrument, which has sensors on the mast and chassis, will provide key information about present-day Mars weather, climate, and dust. Several spacecraft are transmitting data from orbit: NASA’s MAVEN orbiter, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and Mars Odyssey; ESA’s Mars Express and Trace Gas Orbiter; and India’s Mars Orbiter Mission.

Why we explore Mars—and what decades of missions have revealed

Dr Meyer calls Mars’s red colour distinctive- easy to recognise because it’s different from everything else. But did you hear why it’s red in the first place, Sam?On the subject of her being left alone (and she mostly is throughout the book), the supporting cast is actually quite large. Was it difficult to give the all of the other abductees/castaways enough space to intrigue readers while still letting Red fly solo for such long periods of time? Mars has captivated humans since we first set eyes on it as a star-like object in the night sky. Early on, its reddish hue set the planet apart from its shimmering siblings, each compelling in its own way, but none other tracing a ruddy arc through Earth’s heavens. Then, in the late 1800s, telescopes first revealed a surface full of intriguing features—patterns and landforms that scientists at first wrongly ascribed to a bustling Martian civilization. Now, we know there are no artificial constructions on Mars. But we’ve also learned that, until 3.5 billion years ago, the dry, toxic planet we see today might have once been as habitable as Earth. Mars is very cold. The average temperature on Mars is minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit — way below freezing! Unlike ancient civilisations, modern astronomers have sent satellites to land on Mars and explore its surface. And although no human has set foot on the Red Planet so far, we know a lot about conditions there.