Many people think that we do not need to explore the universe or Mars. They think that studying Mars is not as good as spending time on how to protect the earth. In fact, whether it is protecting the earth or studying the universe, it is very important. Because the earth's environment will not remain static, our home planet now actually faces many challenges, such as the risk of asteroids hitting the earth, the risk of climate warming, the risk of super volcanic eruptions, etc. These risks may lead to the destruction of our human civilization. , and our way out is to immigrate to alien planets. As the terrestrial planet in the universe that is relatively close to our earth, Mars is relatively easy to explore.
Now that we are exploring Mars, in addition to studying the feasibility of making Mars a "second home" for humans in the solar system
in the future, there is another very important reason, which is to study the environmental changes of Mars. Environmental change mechanisms to predict the problems that the earth may face in the future.
Some current research shows that Mars billions of years ago was completely different from Mars today. Mars at that time was also a warm and humid world. Life in such a world would definitely be more comfortable than Mars today. It is also because Mars was very habitable in the past, so many people believe that there may have been some unknown prehistoric creatures on Mars billions of years ago. Now that scientists are exploring Mars, on the one hand, they want to find the remains of prehistoric creatures on Mars, hoping to find a breakthrough for extraterrestrial life on Mars. Another aspect is to wonder why Mars, which was once humid, became the desolate state it is now. The current home of the earth is also a warm and humid world. In the future, will the earth undergo dramatic changes like Mars, from a livable home to a desert-like, dead world?
At present, our understanding of Mars is not very deep, so the mechanism and process of environmental changes on Mars are not yet clear. As for what kind of changes the earth will take in the future, it is actually impossible to predict because there will be many objective factors that will affect the future of the earth. The earth may become a world like Mars or a world like Venus in the future. No matter what the situation becomes, the earth will no longer be habitable in 1 billion years. This is something we need to face. By then, human migration to Mars or other alien planets may be the only way out.
Curiosity sent back rare photos
Of course, if you want to immigrate to Mars or land humans on Mars, a very important prerequisite is to have a better understanding of Mars. In order to study Mars, scientists have launched many detectors to explore Mars. For example, the Zhurong Mars rover , the Perseverance Mars rover, and the Curiosity Mars rover are patrolling on Mars. When patrolling Mars, these rovers will send back a large number of detailed photos of the Martian surface.
NASA's Curiosity rover has been operating on the surface of Mars for almost 10 years. NASA has now released photos taken by the Curiosity rover in Gale Crater on Mars. The photos released this time show us the streams on the surface of Mars. The structures formed allow us to learn more about the history of water on Mars.
From the captured footage, we can see that there are some flake-like rocks in front of the rover. These layered flake-like rocks are clearly visible, indicating that they were formed in streams or small ponds. This discovery once again explains to us the fact that Mars was once a humid world in ancient times, and there were a large number of lakes and streams like this on the surface of Mars. At that time, the Curiosity rover was driving at the foot of a mountain called Mount Sharp, and captured these images while moving toward an area rich in sulfate on the top of the mountain. As the Curiosity rover climbed the mountain, all The types of rocks seen also change, with less evidence of lakes and more and more creeks.
Curiosity rover project scientist Ashwin Vasavada said that on the mountain, we no longer see the lake sediments seen at the foot of Mount Sharp. Instead, we see dry sand dunes with occasional streams surrounding these dunes. These are evidence of a dry climate on Mars and a change in the Martian landscape. Of course, these pictures are only the remains of lakes and streams on Mars. It does not mean that there are still liquid lakes and streams on Mars. The real scene of Mars is still desolate and arid, and such a world is also disappointing, because we think Mars may be our "second home", but the images captured by the Mars rover are so desolate, just like the deserts and Gobi Desert on Earth.
Is it hopeless for humans to move to Mars?
Such a world is obviously not suitable for us to live directly. Is our hope of humans immigrating to Mars dashed? In fact, this is not the case. Although the surface of Mars looks very desolate and arid, there is still a lot of water in the desolate Mars. However, because the temperature of Mars is relatively low, the water on Mars basically exists in the form of water ice material.
Below the landing area of our Zhurong Mars rover Utopia Plain , there is a large amount of water ice material, and its water content may even be similar to that of Lake Superior, the largest freshwater lake on earth. This is only a part of the water ice material on Mars. There is still a large amount of water ice material in the North and South Poles of Mars and other areas. If we can develop and utilize these water ice materials, we can grow crops on Mars. Or decompose water to obtain oxygen and hydrogen . In that case, our life on Mars may become a reality.
