Date: April 2, 2011
Title: Exploring the Solar System: Mars
Podcaster: Thomas Hofstätter
Organization: :: The Hidden Space Project :: www.hidden-space.at.tf
Description: The red planet is the best observed in the whole solar system. It’s the second planet on our journey through the solar system. Due to the high amount of information available for the planet, the most exciting is picked out in order to give an overview over the “hidden” sites of Mars.
If you have any questions, comments or suggestions to the podcast, feel free to write me an email to hidden-space (at) gmx (dot) at or visit me at my website at www.hidden-space.at.tf!
Bio: Born in 1993 near Vienna, Austria, Europe. Upper High School with focus on Computer Science.Interested in extreme small and extreme big, devious and uninvestigated things. My main aim is to bring astronomy to public and to establish secular interest in astronomy, physics and mathematics. Host of :: The Hidden Space Project :: at http://hidden-space.at.tf.
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Transcript:
Hello and welcome to this episode of 365 Days of Astronomy. My name is Thomas Hofstätter and I am the hoster of :: The Hidden Space Project :: at www.hidden-space.at.tf.
[Leon:] And I’m Leon Dombroski from the state of Connecticut in the United States.
The planet with the most precise ideas of Science Fiction in the perspective of life, and our next step in the journey through the solar system, is the fourth planet Mars. The “Red Planet” – so-called due to iron oxide triggering a reddish shine – has always fascinated mankind and there have been a lot of theories discussing the possibilities of Martians.
[Leon:] Every couple of years, Mars is visible in the night’s sky, which made it interesting to observe it even in ancient times. Especially interesting for astronomers were the paths of Mars in the sky. Due to the position in relation to earth and the different orbital velocities, the planet seems to move backwards from time to time and forming loops.
This made it difficult for the Egypt astronomer Ptolemy, the constructor of the geocentric model, to calculate the real paths around the earth, as he thought the planet would orbit around. His observations made it necessary for him to introduce epicycles.
[Leon:] For Johannes Kepler, it was easier to describe the motion of Mars because he was the first to think about ellipses as the planets’ orbits.
Another interesting detail of Mars is his surface, which is – in contrast to Venus – visible to the human eye. In the 19th century, the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli observed lines on the surface stretching from the east to the west. He called them “canali” and people around the world began to think that there were channels and hence human-like creatures on Mars.
[Leon:] Today, these “canalis” are called Valles Marineris (Mariner Valley). The valley is comparable to the Grand Canyon, except for its size: it’s 4,000km long and up to 7km deep. For comparison: the Grand Canyon is 446km long and about 2km deep. At the time, it’s not known exactly what caused these extreme formations of nature.
Another extreme on Mars is Olympus Mons (Mount Olympus), a mountain with the height of 27km. It’s the largest mountain in the solar system. According to theories, Olympus Mons is the mountain of an old volcano. At the time, the volcanism on Mars is quite silent, same as the plate tectonic.
[Leon:] There is also no liquid water on Mars. Frozen water – first proved in 2008 by the Phoenix Mars Lander – sublimates to water gas, but there is no liquid water. An exception has been found during the mission of Phoenix when the camera took two photos of salty liquid water.
Life itself hasn’t been found on Mars, yet – although scientists and the public became quite excited when a form similar to an earth microbe has been found the Martian meteorite ALH84001 at the Johnson Space Center. The meteorite fell on earth after a journey of about 15 million years. Indeed, the form of the meteorite is found to be a random phenomenon.
[Leon:] All in all, Mars is one of the best-observed planets in the solar system (except for earth, of course). Even in the beginning of human space exploration, the United States, the Soviets and the Japanese sent several probes to Mars. Mariner 4 performed the first flyby in 1965. Mariner 9 followed in 1971 with the first orbital injection. But for an unknown reason, about 50% of all missions to Mars failed.
This caused the U.S. to always send two probes for a while. So, there are two equal probes on Mars called Spirit and Opportunity. They both landed in 2004 and exceeded their expectations. Originally, they were designed for some weeks to explore the planet. Indeed, Spirit gave up sending signals last year. Opportunity is still in contact with the ground station.
[Leon:] To the several rovers and stationary probes, there are several orbiting probes such as the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which is delivering high-resolution images of the Martian surface to earth helping us to understand the planet a little better. It is also the connection of the landing probes, such as the Mars Science Laboratory launching this year and the ground station. Unfortunately, there is a delay of about 20min until the signal form earth reaches the probes on the surface, so that they have to do as much as possible on their own.
The two Martian moons, Phobos and Deimos, probably trapped objects of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, aren’t discussed here because there is quite few information about the trabants. The Russian mission Phobos-Grunt probably will deliver further information.
[Leon:] Human Exploration of the “Red Planet” is in consideration at the time. In Moscow, a crew is actually training for a human journey to our neighbor planet. The project is called Mars-500 and lasts over a year spent for training of isolation and exploration of the effects on humans. The major problem of a journey to Mars is the extreme distance and time the astronauts are facing. Moreover, there is the danger of solar flares triggering a higher radiation in space maybe harming the astronauts’ life and health.
There are several concepts how to bring humans on the surface of Mars. But since February 1st 2010, the budget for the Constellation-Program has been cut extremely, so that it’s not possible to say when the first humans will land on the surface of another planet.
That’s it for today. I hope, you enjoyed it. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, write me an email to hidden-space (at) gmx (dot) at or visit me at my website at www.hidden-space.at.tf.
Thanks for listening and clear-skies!
[Leon:] Good bye for now!
New stories are to come soon!
APPENDIX
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Characteristics
- Mass: 6.4185*1023kg
- Radius: 3,396.2±0.1km (equatorial), 3,376.2±0.1km (polar)
- Aphel: 249,209,300km (1.665 861AU)
- Perihel: 206,669,000km (1.381 497AU)
- Orbital Period: 1.8808a (686.971d)
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Links for further information:
- Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter
- MRO-HiRISE
- Mars Express
- Mars Odyssey
- Mars Exploration Rovers
- Phoenix Lander
- Mars Science Laboratory
- ExoMars
- Mars Daily
End of podcast:
365 Days of Astronomy
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