Why search for life on other planets? Why not keep to ourselves? The human being's interest in the question “is there other life out there” has been universal and groundbreaking. People are driven to explore the unknown, discover new worlds, push the boundaries of science and what we believe is possible, and then, push even further. The motto for JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratories) is “Dare Mighty Things.” The everlasting desire to explore and challenge the boundaries of what we know and where we’ve been has benefited our world for centuries. Perhaps we will end up providing benefits for other worlds as well.
There several different ways to search for extraterrestrial life. It wasn’t until after the 1950s that anyone found an effective way to begin this search. The Pioneer 5 space probe was first launched in 1960 toward Venus. Now we have rovers to explore the surfaces of other planets and moons. We have orbiters that will explore planets and moons from above, and we have spacecrafts that explored the deepest corners of our galaxy and beyond. In this paper I will show you some of the ways we search other planets for signs of life.
Rovers are medium sized machines that are used for the sole purpose of studying a planet up close. Rovers are like cars in a way because they don't fly. They spend their time rolling around on the surfaces of planets. Rovers have been crucial to our exploration of other planets because of their ability to take an up close look at the planet. Because Rovers are on the surface of our planets, they can take samples and can touch objects. They can also take readings of the radiation air qualities, atmosphere, etc. But being on the surface of planets can pose some problems. Rovers have to navigate the surfaces of plants and make it through many obstacles including boulders, cliffs, storms, etc. A Rover’s up close look at the surface of any planet could very well be the way we end up finding life.
Viking was the first rover to be sent to Mars. It was about the size of a small dog and used instruments from the 19 century, but it to discovered many things relevant to the search for life on other planets.
Viking had a complicated landing sequence that ran into problems with Mars's atmosphere. Mars has an atmosphere thick enough to burn up the spacecraft if NASA doesn't use a heat shield, but the atmosphere is too thin to slow the spacecraft down to a point where NASA only needs to use a parachute to land. The spacecraft had to enter the atmosphere with a heat shield, deploy the parachute, drop the heat shield, take readings of the ground below, detach from the parachute, use rockets to evade the falling parachute, descend to about 20 or so feet from the ground, lower the spacecraft onto the ground, detach the rockets from the rover, and fly the rockets far away. Viking was the mission that originally came up with the landing sequence that Curiosity used. Many other groups tried to find a way to land on Mars before Viking did but no one was successful before Viking. Because of vikings landing sequence we were able to land many rovers on Mars and find out about Mars’s traces of life.
Viking’s main mission was to take readings of Mars, And find evidence of life. It did this using a series of instruments. It had Instruments for looking at the soil, dust measures for dust in the air, and, of course, cameras. Colour cameras had just came out when Viking was being built.
Because of our many rovers, we have been able to gather immense amounts of vital information of planets that could be hosts to life. To conclude, Viking has benefited our search for life in many ways.
One of the most successful and well known rovers is the Curiosity rover. It launched from Cape Canaveral on November 26, 2011. It spent 8 months 10 days in space until it landed, on August 6, 2012. Curiosity was about the size of a small car, it had so many instruments. Curiosity was a very accomplished rover in our search for life on Mars.
One of the rovers challenges is that is has to land safely so it can explore the planet. Curiosity's landing system was one of the most complicated landings in history. In fact, it was so complicated that 500,000 lines of code were needed. The main problem about landing on mars is it’s atmosphere. For the rover to enter the atmosphere and for the rover to land on the surface is 7 min. It takes 14 min for the spacecraft to send and receive messages to and from earth. As a result the spacecraft can't be manually controlled, the landing procedure has to be coded.
Curiosity spent the rest of its life studying as much as it can of Mars. It gathered crucial info on Mars's surface. Scientists found much clues of life through Curiosity. While taking samples of the surface rock Curiosity found many abundances of sulfur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and carbon, which are all considered the "building blocks" or fundamental elements that could support life. While this is not directly evidence of life itself, It hinted at the possibility of life on Mars, past or future.
Another piece of great info that Curiosity found was that there is almost a survivable amount of radiation for one human lifetime on Mars. This means that it is a possibility to send people to Mars, like we did the moon. To investigate, or possibly, to inhabit the planet. Inhabiting the planet would mean we would have to find a way around this problem. It might be a survivable amount of radiation for other species. This increases to the suspicion of there being (past tense or present tense) life on mars.
To conclude, Curiosity was a very successful mission, and most would say that it was worth the tons of work put into it. Curiosity gathered a ton (not a literal ton) of information.
Orbiters were inspired by the our first trip to the moon. The word orbiter was originally used to refer to a space shuttle that orbits earth. The word orbiter can also refer to the price of a spacecraft that orbits a planet. For example, when Curiosity landed on Mars, a part of it stayed behind and took pictures and readings from up above. That part was the “Reconnaissance orbiter”. Orbiters search for clues of life by taking pictures and readings on the planet and its atmosphere from above.
Curiosity's orbiter spent pretty much all of its time taking pictures. One of these pictures is a picture of Curiosity. From this distance it looks as if Curiosity is a blue beetle (blue because of the glare of of its reflective panels) on a massive reddish broken up worn down rocky surface. The Curiosity’s orbiter or Reconnaissance orbiter was a helpful hand in our search for possible life on Mars.
Space probes are spacecrafts whose purpose is to travel long distances and take measurements all the way. Space probes are spacecrafts with no humans sent into the space with the general purpose of exploring other far away planets. These probes do countless flybys of other planets. They sometimes end up orbiting planets and they sometimes don't.
Cassini was a space probe who studied saturn in depth. Cassini took many pictures, readings, and such, and gathered a immense amount of information. Over the 7,285 days that Cassini was traveling it accomplished a series of things. Cassini completed first detailed findings of Saturn and its family of moons and rings. Cassini delivered a probe (The Huygens Probe) to Titan for the first landing on another planet's moon! Using extensive equipment Cassini discovered geysers and a global subsurface ocean on Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons. Cassini also found very clear evidence of present-day hydrothermal activity on Enceladus - the first detection of hydrothermal activity beyond Earth. The space probe revealed Titan as a world with rain, rivers, lakes and seas. Cassini revealed Saturn's many rings as active and dynamic, a lab for how planets form.
Cassini was a very successful spacecraft. Cassini had 294 orbits overall, 127 flybys of one of Saturn's moons: Titan, and 23 flybys of another of Saturn’s moons: Enceladus. Enceladus and Titan are two very cool moons. Enceladus looks like a giant ball if ice from above, but it actually has a massive ocean under the ice. This is the closest anyone has come to finding life on another planet. But, there are a couple of problems when we think of life on Enceladus. There is almost no light below the surface of the ice, the planet is young, so life might not have developed yet, and there is no easy way to get into the water to have a look around.
To conclude, Cassini was incredibly successful in our search for life on saturn and its many moons. Cassini gathered information on Titan and Enceladus that no spacecraft has ever done before. Cassini took many pictures and lasted a very long time in its search for life on saturn and its moons.
The different kinds of spacecrafts have accomplished a lot of things and provided a lot of data. We have gathered immense amounts of info on our neighboring planets, but... we're not done. We will continue to search out into the stars in our quest for other life.
To conclude, Curiosity was a very successful mission, and most would say that it was worth the tons of work put into it. Curiosity gathered a ton (not a literal ton) of information.
Orbiters were inspired by the our first trip to the moon. The word orbiter was originally used to refer to a space shuttle that orbits earth. The word orbiter can also refer to the price of a spacecraft that orbits a planet. For example, when Curiosity landed on Mars, a part of it stayed behind and took pictures and readings from up above. That part was the “Reconnaissance orbiter”. Orbiters search for clues of life by taking pictures and readings on the planet and its atmosphere from above.
Curiosity's orbiter spent pretty much all of its time taking pictures. One of these pictures is a picture of Curiosity. From this distance it looks as if Curiosity is a blue beetle (blue because of the glare of of its reflective panels) on a massive reddish broken up worn down rocky surface. The Curiosity’s orbiter or Reconnaissance orbiter was a helpful hand in our search for possible life on Mars.
Space probes are spacecrafts whose purpose is to travel long distances and take measurements all the way. Space probes are spacecrafts with no humans sent into the space with the general purpose of exploring other far away planets. These probes do countless flybys of other planets. They sometimes end up orbiting planets and they sometimes don't.
Cassini was a space probe who studied saturn in depth. Cassini took many pictures, readings, and such, and gathered a immense amount of information. Over the 7,285 days that Cassini was traveling it accomplished a series of things. Cassini completed first detailed findings of Saturn and its family of moons and rings. Cassini delivered a probe (The Huygens Probe) to Titan for the first landing on another planet's moon! Using extensive equipment Cassini discovered geysers and a global subsurface ocean on Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons. Cassini also found very clear evidence of present-day hydrothermal activity on Enceladus - the first detection of hydrothermal activity beyond Earth. The space probe revealed Titan as a world with rain, rivers, lakes and seas. Cassini revealed Saturn's many rings as active and dynamic, a lab for how planets form.
Cassini was a very successful spacecraft. Cassini had 294 orbits overall, 127 flybys of one of Saturn's moons: Titan, and 23 flybys of another of Saturn’s moons: Enceladus. Enceladus and Titan are two very cool moons. Enceladus looks like a giant ball if ice from above, but it actually has a massive ocean under the ice. This is the closest anyone has come to finding life on another planet. But, there are a couple of problems when we think of life on Enceladus. There is almost no light below the surface of the ice, the planet is young, so life might not have developed yet, and there is no easy way to get into the water to have a look around.
To conclude, Cassini was incredibly successful in our search for life on saturn and its many moons. Cassini gathered information on Titan and Enceladus that no spacecraft has ever done before. Cassini took many pictures and lasted a very long time in its search for life on saturn and its moons.
The different kinds of spacecrafts have accomplished a lot of things and provided a lot of data. We have gathered immense amounts of info on our neighboring planets, but... we're not done. We will continue to search out into the stars in our quest for other life.
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