Many of us have seen astronauts colonizing the Red Planet in sci-fi movies without even thinking that such scenarios will ever have a chance to become a reality. Humanity is still far from that goal, but it appears to be making some progress, at least when it comes to sending the first astronauts to lay foot on Mars.
NASA sent its Curiosity rover to the Red Planet more than a decade ago in order to explore the planet’s soil. It would be risky for humans to ever lay foot on our neighboring planet without exploring its environment remotely as much as possible.
No signs of alien life yet
NASA’s rover found on the Red Planet what seems to look like giant “fingers.” Don’t worry, there’s no trace of any alien, at least for now! The rover’s Twitter account describes the discovery as follows:
Fingerling…rocks? I spotted these odd shapes while I was exploring. They likely formed billions of years ago when groundwater moved through, leaving minerals behind. In the Martian atmosphere, winds eroded the softer parts and left the harder bits behind.
Fingerling…rocks? I spotted these odd shapes while I was exploring. They likely formed billions of years ago when groundwater moved through, leaving minerals behind. In the Martian atmosphere, winds eroded the softer parts and left the harder bits behind. https://t.co/XKbiJuUMEC pic.twitter.com/U091p6DOf1
— Curiosity Rover (@MarsCuriosity) June 15, 2022
Amusingly enough, NASA recently found trash on Mars that was left behind by a rover… of NASA itself! This made some people speculate that the space agency is littering the Red Planet instead of colonizing it as it claims to be willing to do.
Humans went to the Moon more than 50 years ago when technology was far inferior to what exists today, so what’s taking them so long to land on Mars? That’s indeed one very common question that many of us have heard. Well, the answer might be that the Moon is a lot closer to us compared to the Red Planet.
The distance that separates Earth from its natural satellite is only 384,400 kilometers. The closest distance between our planet and Mars, on the other hand, is 54.6 million kilometers.