New Eyes on Mars
September 24, 2014
Two new spacecraft have slid into orbit around Mars in the past few days, including the first probe from an Asian country. That pioneering probe was from India, which also became the first nation or geographic group to sucessfully reach Mars on its first try. The Indian Space Research Organisation playfully announced the arrival of its Mars Orbiter Mission, also known as Mangalyaan, on the probe’s Twitter account with the message, “What is red, is a planet and is the focus of my orbit?” On Sunday, NASA’s Mars Atmospheric and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft entered Mars orbit. Both Mangalyaan and MAVEN will circle the red planet to study its atmosphere.
Mangalyaan–Sanskrit for Mars craft–is primarily a demonstration of India’s technological expertise, especially considering the mission’s amazingly inexpensive (for a spacecraft) $74-million pricetag. However, the probe, which is expected to orbit Mars for 6 and 10 months, also carries a camera and four scientific instruments for studying the plane’t surface and atmosphere. One part of its mission will be a search for atmospheric methane. Some 90 percent of the methane in Earth’s atmosphere is produced by living things, so the presence of the quickly disappearing gas in the Martian atmosphere could be a sign of microbial life there.
NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission approaches Mars in an artist’s conception. (NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center)
NASA’s MAVEN probe will be the first to focus on Mars’s thin upper atmosphere in an effort to learn how and why Mars changed from a warm, wet planet to the cold, dry world it is today. The agency said the spacecraft will search for information about the history of the Martian atmsophere and how changes in climate influenced the evolution of the surface and the potential habitability of the planet.
MAVEN and Mangalyaan have become the fourth and five operational missions, respectively, now orbitting Mars. The other probes are Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, both from the United States, and Mars Express, launched by the European Space Agency. In 1971, the former Soviet Union successfully placed its Mars 3 probe in orbit around the red planet. Two rovers, NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Mission (Opportunity) and Mars Science Laboratory (Curiosity), are currently exploring the Martian surface.
Additional World Book articles:
- Mars Pathfinder
- Phoenix
- Space exploration (Probes to Mars)
- The Search for Water on Mars (a special report)
