There is flowing liquid water on the surface of Mars, pointing to the existence of large-scale reservoirs under the surface, which may provide support for future human settlers. This is not a guess. The data obtained by scientists are 100% reliable. This discovery is of great significance, which may also include the idea of traveling and vacationing on this red planet.
If humans don't destroy themselves in the future, Mars tourism will become very common in the near future. For those who don't pay attention to space news, NASA held a press conference last week to announce the discovery of liquid water evidence on the edge of some craters on Mars, which doesn't seem to make much sense. After all, the existence of water ice has been discovered as early as the polar regions of Mars, even 10 years ago.
But the dark belts on the edge of those craters prove that in the summer of the northern hemisphere of Mars, when the sun warms the sunny side of the mountains, liquid water will seep out of the underground aquifer of Mars. This is completely different from the existence of solid water ice, because according to the experience on earth, there is life where liquid water flows. Scientists have always believed that no life can survive in a vacuum in space. That environment is too harsh and extreme. However, a lunar exploration broke this inherent concept.
The news of the discovery of liquid water on Mars greatly increases the possibility of finding traces of life on this red planet. 1966, the unmanned probe Surveyor -3 sent back thousands of images of the surface of the moon, but what no one realized at that time was that a more interesting thing was happening in the spacecraft itself.
During the construction of this spaceship, an engineer from NASA sneezed in a sterile laboratory. In this process, some tiny droplets passed through the mask he was wearing and attached to the surface of the spacecraft. The microorganisms contained in it have withstood the severe shock of rocket launch and the test of flying over the vast space between the earth and the moon, and somehow survived on the surface of the moon without atmosphere.
Many years later, when people studied under the microscope, these microorganisms evolved into barnacle-like creatures. It seems that nowhere in the universe is the environment too extreme for life. The desolate and unventilated environment on the surface of the moon is more extreme than the worst environment where life has been found on earth, such as the ice sheet in Antarctica.
Just last week, NASA held a press conference to announce the discovery of liquid water on the surface of Mars. So theoretically, although Mars is cold and barren, it may still be a hotbed of new life, and life in ancient times may not have died yet. But if this situation is to be possible, then liquid water will be an indispensable condition. Therefore, the slogan used by NASA in the search for life outside the earth is: follow the footsteps of water.
Of course, the rover working on the surface of Mars will one day find the possibility of fossil remains of primitive life on Mars, and even more fortunately, it will directly find dormant life forms, which may have been dormant on Mars for hundreds of millions of years. Such an idea is not completely impossible. According to the current research, such a situation is even likely to happen. In addition, it is also of great significance for us to carry out research on possible life on Mars: one theory points out that life on earth may come from the universe, or even from Mars-in ancient times, the seeds of life began on the surface of Mars, were carried by meteorites or comets, and spread to the surface of the earth. In other words, if the human astronauts who landed on Mars can find microscopic biological fossils on Mars with a microscope, then maybe they are witnessing our oldest ancestors.
It is not the first time in history that the news that there may be life on Mars has aroused people's strong concern. The first craze dates back to AD 1877. At that time, an Italian astronomer named Ciaparra Parrali used a telescope to see the dark stripes on the surface of Mars, which would appear or disappear with the change of seasons. So naturally, there are all kinds of whimsy about the reasons for these stripes. The most popular one is that these irregular stripes are actually agricultural irrigation canals on Mars.
Sadly, however, in fact, there are no traces of plants or farmers on the surface of Mars, and there are no large animals there, which is the favorite object of science fiction writers. Although this Victorian idea in England is more of a fantasy, strangely, some of it is true. The dark stripes that Ciaparra saw were actually formed by seasonal dust, but billions of years have passed, and there are indeed oceans, rivers and lakes on the surface of Mars.
Future trip to Mars?
Liquid water is widely used, far more than just for astronauts to drink. It can also be used to generate electricity or as rocket fuel. For a long time, people have always thought that there can be no liquid water on Mars for the simple reason that Mars is too far away, almost twice the distance from the earth to the sun. At such a long distance, the temperature will be very low, and it is difficult to reach the melting point of water and ice. However, the water found on Mars this time contains a high concentration of salt, which means that it can remain liquid at a temperature below minus 20 degrees Celsius. We can't take water from the earth to Mars because it is too heavy for us to transport it between the earth and Mars on a large scale. However, if Mars itself has a large number of water bodies, then we can use them locally. The purified water on Mars can be used as drinking water, just as the desalinated salt water on the earth can be used for us to drink. In addition, these water bodies can also be used to meet other domestic water needs of human settlers. Water can also be broken down into its two components: hydrogen and oxygen. At very low temperature, both hydrogen and oxygen can be stored in liquid form, and if necessary, electricity can be generated through the process of "reverse electrolysis", which is very important for lighting, heating and other scientific equipment. Therefore, we can get electricity through water, and astronauts can no longer rely solely on solar energy to provide electricity. On the Apollo spacecraft, all kinds of electrical appliances use a lot of water pipes to cool down, which is a bit like the refrigeration method of household refrigerators. In addition, oxygen and hydrogen are excellent rocket propulsion fuels. Therefore, fuel, air, water and electricity: all these vital resources for human astronauts to survive on Mars can be solved by using local materials. For the first time in history, we found that human settlement on another planet is no longer so far away, and even such a vision has become inevitable. The technological progress made by human society in the past 60 years is amazing. The real world may still be different from the future world we saw in comic books or heard on the radio when we were young, but in some ways, the real space exploration project is even more exciting than those daydreams when we were young.
For this, there is absolutely no lack of rich people's approval in human society. Technology billionaire Elon Musk (Elon? Musk) founded the space exploration technology company and is currently undertaking the heavy responsibility of transporting materials to the International Space Station. Musk firmly believes that his company has designed the spacecraft needed to send human astronauts to Mars in the future. Rocket scientists' calculations show that it will be a long journey lasting more than two years: it takes nine months to go to Mars, six months to live on Mars, and then nine months to return. Richard branson (Richard? Branson's idea of space travel lacks imagination. When people realize that traveling to Mars will become a reality, they will be completely dissatisfied with Branson's so-called trip to Earth orbit. On Mars, there are super canyons deep enough to put down Mount Everest and super volcanoes five times higher than Mount Kilimanjaro-the geographical landscape on this red planet is amazing.
In the face of such a scene, who will not be moved? This is the ultimate dream of travel, and it will come true in the next few decades, maybe 100. With the discovery of liquid water on Mars, our future trip to Mars will almost certainly come true. ?