There are eight planets in the solar system, four of which are terrestrial planets. Except for Mercury, which is relatively close to the sun and not in the habitable zone, the other three planets are in the habitable zone. Venus, Earth, and Mars are the three terrestrial planets in the habitable zone of the solar system. When you compare them together, you can see which one is more dazzling at a glance.
There is no harm if there is no comparison. As soon as Venus, Earth and Mars are compared, we can see the beautiful and dazzling blue demeanor of the Earth. On the other hand, Venus and Mars look a bit desolate, both showing a red appearance. In terms of mass and volume, Venus is undoubtedly the closest to the earth, so scientists also call Venus the sister planet of the earth.
It is precisely because Venus is so similar to the earth that it is the first thing that humans will detect after walking out of the earth. But when the probe reached the orbit of Venus, we saw a world of purgatory surrounded by a thick atmosphere. The environment on the surface of Venus is too harsh, not only the temperature is as high as 460 degrees Celsius, but also sulfuric acid rain often falls.
The thick atmosphere and harsh performance environment of Venus hinder further detection by the probe. After many failed attempts, scientists had to abandon the exploration of Venus and focus on Mars. The mass of Mars is only one-tenth of that of the earth, which is much smaller than that of the earth.
Compared with the purgatory world of Venus, the environment on the surface of Mars is much better, with only a thin atmosphere. Human probes can also board Mars for long-term mobile detection. It’s just that if the probe wants to go to Mars, it is more difficult than going to Venus, and it also needs to wait for the arrival of the Mars window once every 26 months before it can launch the probe.
The exploration of Mars began as early as 60 years ago, but some of the first probes basically ended in failure. It was not until the launch of the Mariner 4 probe in 1964 that it made a close leap to Mars. This is also the first time we have taken photos of Mars at close range. Through these photos we have seen a desolate world, and there is no Martian life that some people think.
With the continuous advancement of human science and technology, the Mars rover has also continued to improve and become more and more advanced. By the time window of Mars in 2011, scientists launched the Curiosity Mars rover, which uses nuclear power as its energy source. It assembled the most powerful space technology of mankind at that time. No one thought that Curiosity would do it in the subsequent years of exploration. Mankind has made a great contribution to understanding Mars.
Curiosity began its mobile exploration road after reaching Mars, and took many photos of Mars in the process of continuous movement. These photos are different from those taken by the probes in the past. The photos of the surface of Mars in the past were blurry, but many of Curiosity’s photos were very clear, especially some selfies, which are clearer, allowing us to see the real The surface of Mars.
In a Martian selfie, Curiosity drilled 3 small holes in the surface of Mars and took multiple selfies while standing next to the 3 small holes. Some friends may have seen these three small holes in the photos of these distributions. It is because these small holes are too small and the angles are not very clear.
In another close-up photo, we can clearly see that there are 3 small holes in the left area of the Curiosity rover. Scientists named them Groken, Mary Anning and Mary Anning 3. Why does Curiosity drill these small holes? The purpose is to study some details of the ancient environment of Mars.
As Curiosity took a variety of very clear photos of the surface of Mars, scientists realized through these photos that although Mars is now very desolate, it looks like the Gobi desert and desert areas of the earth, but various signs indicate that the ancient times Mars may not be desolate, but a beautiful ecological planet with a large amount of liquid water on the surface. It is not even ruled out that ancient Mars is also a planet of life.
These major discoveries on the surface of Mars are very important to mankind. It is important to know that an important purpose of mankind’s exploration of Mars is to hope that it can become the second home of mankind. Although the earth is our home planet, the rapid development of industry has caused the earth’s ecological environment to continue to deteriorate, and the number of people on the earth is also increasing.
Regardless of whether it is considered from the ecological environment or the population, the future earth may no longer be suitable for human survival. We need to find a new home in advance. Even if human beings make efforts to improve the ecological environment of the earth in the future, the substantial increase in population is difficult to control, and the earth’s bearing capacity is limited.
When the global population exceeds 10 billion, the pressure on the ecological environment will be very high. At that time, we need to divert and transfer part of the earth’s population to other planets. Mars is undoubtedly a better choice, and the current environment of Mars is not suitable for human survival, so it needs various modifications.
To transform Mars, we need to know more about the history of Mars. Now scientists have discovered that ancient Mars may have been an ecological planet and had a large amount of liquid water on its surface. This is undoubtedly good news. This shows that Mars has an excellent ecological environment foundation, especially water resources. The current observations have found that there is still a lot of water at the poles of Mars, and there may even be some liquid water stored under the surface of Mars.
Water is not only the source of life, but also an important material needed to transform the environment. With water, it is much easier to transform the Martian environment, which can make it the second home of mankind in a shorter period of time. The more you know about Mars, the greater the hope that it will become the second home for mankind. At present, scientists have greater and greater hopes for the success of transforming Mars.
The continuous good news of Mars has made many countries in the world unable to sit still, and have launched Mars exploration programs. In this year’s time window on Mars, my country’s Tianwen-1, the UAE’s Hope, and the United States’ Perseverance have all launched intensively to go to Mars for exploration.
We can foresee that in the next time window, more Mars probes will be launched to Mars, and in the near future, manned landing on Mars to establish a preliminary Mars base will not be too far away from us. With the Mars base, we will be able to better detect Mars, and initially begin to transform Mars.
As long as Mars has a lot of vegetation and the atmosphere has oxygen, then the basic survival of mankind will be no problem. Of course, the atmosphere of Mars is relatively thin, solar radiation and cosmic radiation are much more serious than those on the earth, and the fragile body of human beings has relatively weak resistance to these radiations. Therefore, people who will migrate to Mars in the future will need some genetic modification to have strong radiation resistance.
In any case, Mars has been predetermined by mankind, it will be the second home of mankind, and with the help of science and technology, it is not difficult to realize it. In the future solar system, humans’ footsteps are no longer limited to the earth. At that time, another branch of humans, Martians, will appear. Of course, Venus may also become a new home for mankind. To some extent, it is more suitable for human survival than Mars. It only needs us to solve the high carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere.