In the more than half a century since human beings walked out of the earth, the exploration of extraterrestrial life has not stopped. Whether launching Voyager 1 or searching for mysterious signals from the universe, they all have a common goal, which is to search for possible extraterrestrial life in the universe.
For the current human science and technology, it is impossible for us to go out of the solar system to explore and find extraterrestrial life, so the important task of finding extraterrestrial life can only be placed on the solar system. In the solar system, the planet most likely to have extraterrestrial life is undoubtedly Mars. It is the neighbor of the earth and has many similarities with the earth, and it is also in the habitable zone.
Since the beginning of the last century, humans have launched dozens of Mars probes, and launched continuous exploration and research on Mars. Among these probes, the more famous one may be the Curiosity rover.
The Curiosity rover is the first nuclear-powered probe in the history of human science. It has many powerful functions. It was launched in November 2011 and successfully landed on the surface of Mars in August 2012. It is the seventh Mars landing probe in the United States and the fourth Mars rover, powered by nuclear power.
With strong nuclear power, the survivability of the Mars rover is undoubtedly improved a lot, even in the face of the dust storm on Mars, Curiosity can continue to work. More than 8 years have passed since 2012. Curiosity has taken many clear photos of the surface of Mars through constant mobile office work, which has made a great contribution to our understanding of Mars.
Every rover on Mars has an important mission, which is to find possible Martian life. So is life possible on Mars? Before the probe landed on Mars, many scientists speculated that there might be life on Mars.
However, when the probe landed on Mars, it saw a desolate red desert world with no life at all. At this time, most scientists believed that life on Mars is unlikely. However, as time goes by, the probe has deepened the exploration of Mars. We have not only discovered the existence of water in the north and south poles of Mars, but also found microorganisms on the surface of Mars.
The probe also found many ancient riverbeds on the surface of Mars. These major discoveries tell us that ancient Mars is not a desolate planet, but a beautiful ecological planet like the Earth, with oceans on the surface.
Water is the source of life. A planet with a large amount of liquid water is naturally very likely to give birth to life. Therefore, scientists believe that ancient Mars may also be a planet of life. This makes humans have higher expectations for discovering life on Mars, and Curiosity’s shooting function is undoubtedly very powerful, and it can take high-definition images of the surface of Mars at close range.
Scientists have discovered many mysterious and strange objects in the massive photos of Mars sent back to Earth by Curiosity. These objects look like man-made objects. After the photos were released, people speculated that they might be evidence of the existence of Martian civilization. However, later scientists came out to explain that these strange objects were not civilization creations, but some similar Martian rocks.
Among them, a sphere appeared in a photo, which became a hot topic for a period of time. In this photo, we clearly see the rubble on the surface of Mars. In the center of these rubble, a strange circular object is particularly conspicuous. After seeing this object, many people thought that it might be a “steel ball” manufactured by technology, and some people speculated that it might be a “cannonball” left over from the “Martian War”.
I believe that every friend who sees this picture will regard this strange round object as a civilized creation, because it is obviously different from the surrounding rocks. It doesn’t look like a rock at all, but more like it. Technology creation. So what is the true identity of this “steel ball” object?
After the photo was published, it caused heated discussions on the Internet, and 90% of netizens believed it was a man-made object. Later, the NASA “Curiosity” rover team came forward to explain this. The Mars team said: This photo is indeed from a scene on the surface of Mars taken by Curiosity, but this mysterious “spherical object” Less than 5 mm in diameter, it is a rock object composed of calcium sulfate, sodium and magnesium, not a technological creation as people imagine.
At this point, the identity of this mysterious “steel ball” object has been revealed. From this, we can also see the extraordinary craftsmanship of nature, as well as the shortcomings of unmanned detectors. Although unmanned probes are better able to go to Mars for various detections, no matter how smart the machine is, it cannot be compared with the human brain.
Especially in the process of exploring life on Mars, although Curiosity has strong motivation and good shooting functions, its ability to analyze the target objects captured is very weak. If there are real scientific and technological creations on the surface of Mars, then Curiosity will not be able to recognize it. At most, it can only take a picture and send it back to Earth for scientists to analyze.
But scientists can’t determine whether the target object is a man-made object or a natural rock just by using a photo. For example, the object that looks like a “steel ball” in the photo above does not look like a natural rock in the high-definition photos. Scientists judge it to be a rock, also because its diameter is less than 5 mm. But let’s not forget that many ball diameters are less than 5 mm.
If human beings land on the surface of Mars and find such a mysterious object, just pick it up and look at it, and it may be easy to judge whether it is a technological creation or a natural object. In addition, for the detection of life, we currently speculate that ancient Mars may be the planet of life, and it is unlikely that there will be life on Mars today.
If life existed on ancient Mars, some fossils of Mars may be left behind. It is difficult to judge these fossils by the Martian rover, because they are no different from ordinary rocks in appearance. Only by observing them at close range can we subjectively judge whether they are fossils on Mars.
Although we know the many advantages of manned missions to Mars, the current scientific and technological strength of mankind cannot be realized at all. Manned landing on Mars and manned landing on the moon are completely two concepts, and the difficulty is very different. Therefore, humans still can only rely on detectors to detect Mars.
2020 is a new window for the launch of Mars. There are 3 Mars probes around the world leaving the Earth and heading for Mars. Among them are my country’s “Tianwen No. 1”, the United States’ “Perseverance” and the UAE’s “Hope”. They rush to Mars with human expectations and start a new exploration journey, hoping that these three probes can bring good news to mankind.