1. Exploring Mars

2. Inspiration
Drawings by Dianna Gouskos, 3rd Grade Turner School, April 2000, Mars Millennium Project

3. Rovers Exploration comes from a combination of sources.
Earth telescopes
Orbiters
Landing craft
The Rover program has had seven vehicles.
Opportunity since 2004
Curiosity since 2012

4. Is There Water? Schiaparelli (1877) saw “canals” on Mars.
These were actually shaded areas due to dust storms and surface features.
The atmosphere is too thin to sustain liquid water.

5. Polar Caps
Like Earth, Mars has polar caps that change with the seasons.
Cold temperatures on Mars mean that part of the polar ice is carbon dioxide as well as water.

6. Surface Water Canyons are evidence of water that once flowed.
Boulders on the surface were moved by ancient floods.

7. Underground Mars had a thicker atmosphere in the past.
3.8 billion years ago
Lakes and seas
Some water today is frozen underground, covered by dust.
Surface outcrops
dust
ice
crust

8. Is There Life? Mars had water and an atmosphere.
The chemical building blocks are plentiful in space.
On Earth, life appeared after about 1 billion years.
First life forms were bacteria.

9. Mars Rock on Earth
16 million years ago, an asteroid slammed into Mars.
Mars rocks were thrown into space, drifted, and one landed in Antarctica 13,000 years ago.
The chemical and gas composition of the meteorite matches Mars, not Earth.

10. Mars Fossils
A Martian meteorite from Antarctica has evidence of water and carbon.
3.6 billion years old
The meteorite has microscopic tubes like bacteria fossils.
There is no agreement among experts yet.

11. Methane Gas Methane gas is associated with organic processes
No active Martian volcanoes
Large areas of methane detected from the crust.
Underground bacteria?
False readings?