"a source of rampant speculations for centuries." "Could it be home to a rival civilization ?" "Is there really a face on its surface ?" "This intriguing planetary neighbor still captivates us." "And as both a potential base for future colonization." "And the keeper of 4 billion year old biological secrets." "the red planet may hold the keys to both our future and our past." "the red planet this is the most likely candidate." "Mars." "a tour of Mars might be very reminiscent of places back home." "Places like Southern California's Mojavi Desert. he comes here to try to better understand conditions on the red planet." "You travel around here in the doom baggy and you'll see features that look just like the doom features on Mars. full of iron oxydes that we see on Mars. turns into dust particles you have this red atmosphere" "sometime red all over the surface of the planet." "Huge dust storms." "They don't call it the red planet for nothing. is the tallest known peak in the solar system." "that rises fifteen miles above the martian surface. and compared with Olympus Mons on Mars." "That mount is so large you can be on its slopes and you would not know that you're on a slope of a volcano before you get to its sommit. inhospitable zone for human beings." "Green board... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1..." "Engine start and lift off of the delta 2 rocket carrying the Spirit from Earth to planet Mars. even months at a time." "It goes down to a hundred degrees below zero every night." "is an atmosphere with no oxygen." "Martian air and even occasional clouds formations are made up almost entirely of carbon dioxide." "if you're right there." "relative to the Earth." "Only about half the size of our planet." "Its distance from us it's never less than 34 million miles." "It appears as nothing more than a tiny red orb in our night sky." "Mars has captivated human kind for centuries." "The planet takes its name from the Roman God of war. and because of its distinctive movement in the sky." "Mars wonders." "It doesn't do what the stars do." "The red planet occasionally appears to be moving backward across the sky." "A behavior that confounded observers for centuries. lead Polish astronomer Nicholas Copernicus to a revolutionary understanding of the solar system. and he says :" "maybe the Earth isn't at the center of the Universe." "things are going around the Sun." "then we can explain why Mars begins to wonder in our sky." "Looks like it's going this way and then the source goes this way. for some 4.5 billion years." "Time enough for the two planets to evolved into very different worlds." "wet and oxygen rich." "dry and oxygen depleted." "Yet it's now believed that the differences weren't always so stark." "Scientists today think that Mars was once warm enough for large amounts of liquid water to flow across its surface. and that there is no liquid water on the planet today but there's virtually incontrovertible evidence that there was water there in the past. we see very similar structures" "leading us to the absolute conclusion that Mars was once far warmer and wetter than it is now. so what could have happened ?" "What cosmic process could have brought about such a dramatic transformation of the fourth planet from the Sun." "The story begins with the origin of the solar system. our solar system sprang from a supernova." "A stellar explosion emitting a swirling mass of molecular particles and gasses." "This swirling mass or "nebula" began to cool it condensed and separated into rings of particles." "These particles began to accrete or gradually come together to form planets." "The accretion process creates heat and heavier particles sink to the center of the accumulating mass." "So Mars eventually formed a molten iron core." "This churning molten core generated a powerful magnetic field. blocking harmful emissions from the Sun." "You have this constant pressure from the Sun which we call the solar wind. all of these kinds of charged particles sputter it away." "But eventually Mars lost its protective shield and most of its atmosphere." "The moment the accretion process ended the planet began to cool." "The iron core was no longer able to generate this magnetic field and then the solar wind started pounding the surface of Mars." "That's a scenario that a lot of people believe." "The loss of atmosphere stripped the martian surface of warmth and pressure water is no longer stable on the martian surface." "If we put a pan of water out there on Mars it's gonna evaporate very fast and try to freeze at the same time." "but you won't have a nice liquid pan of water." "That's not to say however that there's no water on the planet at all. is a different story." "And evidence suggests that still today tons of water ice might lie just below the martian polar caps." "Locked within that ice might just be the Holy Grail of space exploration." "They're visible through simple telescopes on Earth and they are inquestionably the first planetary features noticeable the martian polar caps. sheathing the top and bottom of the red planet." "Actually what we call dry ice is frozen carbon dioxide so when it gets very cold what condenses out carbon dioxide ice. it's not the frozen concentrations of CO2 themselves that are of most interest to scientists." "It's what's thought to be hidden beneath the polar caps that could have massive significance. may be millions of tons of frozen water." "Water ice hidden from view appears to radiate out hundreds of miles in all directions from the poles" "and leading scientists think it could be the residue of once vast oceans. but maybe there are pressures and temperatures in various areas of Mars that have liquified the ice and created perhaps aqua forms." "We can see craters in an impact." "This up an asteroid that's hit Mars it doesn't blow out it turns out kind of a muddy slurry of stuff." "So the conclusion is that you're actually impacting into ice a tundra kind of stuff." "Orbiting spacecrafts have picked up strong indicators for the existence of water ice at the martian poles." "Remote measurements of soil composition have detected high levels of hydrogen. so the possibility of ice hiding below the surface in those areas is overwhelming." "But while strong evidence of ice at the martian poles may be relatively new elicited wide spread anxiety on Earth for much of the first half of the twentieth century." "Astronomers pointed the first telescope towards Mars in 1610. a blurred image of the red planet drew ever closer to the eyes of earthly observers. so that it appeared roughly the size of a dime held at harm's length. to attempt to sketch the martian surface and name its geological features." "Schiaparelli peered at the hazy shifty visage night after night for months." "And he sees what he thinks are criss-cross lines on the surface of Mars." "what he saw isn't exactly but still through his crude telescope that's what he could see." "Respected Italian astronomers sketched these lines and gave them a name." "Schiaparelli interpreted these lines as he didn't really know. but instead it got mistranslated as "canals"." "Schiaparelli sketches gave birth to the idea that some form of intelligent life must exist on Mars. widely debated among the astronomers of the day. a wealthy Bostonian named Percival Lowell was so intrigued by this possibility that he paid to have a large telescope constructed on a mountain side" "Arizona." "sketching and speculating about the red planet. they build canals. they have to move the water to live on Mars." "that there was a civilisation on Mars." "Against this backdrop on Halloween night 1938" "A young actor named Orson Wells broadcasted a dramatisazion of War of the Worlds" "A novella by british author H. G. Wells" "In which sinister martians land on Earth and wreak havoc" "We now return you to Carl Phillips at Grovers Mill." "something's happening" "There's a plane springing from that mirror and it leaps right at the advancing men they're turning into flame!" "Thousands of citizens believed the invasion was real." "The misunderstanding was short lived." "But even so the broadcast only served to fuel public speculation about potential intelligent life on Mars." "Mars: it has intrigued human kind for thousands of years." "And in mid 20th century humans finally got a closer look at the mysterious planet. launched the small exploration spacecraft toward the red planet" "it had a television camera and its mission was to fly past Mars and send back pictures." "It could only make one pass." "Scientists were filled with anxious excitement at the prospect of what they might see." "is it gonna see forests?" "But all of what it saw it was craters." "It sent back pictures which just were very fuzzy and showed craters like on the moon." "It was a huge let down." "The Mariner 4 images revealed a dry cratered desert like and seemingly dead planet." "Sort of like the moon with a little air to blow the dust around." "But the enthusiasm for exploring Mars was only tempered. NASA sent another spacecraft to the red planet:" "Mariner 9." "rather than just making a single pass by Mars" "Mariner 9 was engineered to orbit the planet for weeks and do a complete mapping." "The effort paid off." "Mariner 9 started returning spectacular images. near the equator." "The bulge is a result of concentrated and massive volcanic activity." "The dominant feature of the Tharsis bulge is the monster volcano:" "Olympus mons. it would dominate that picture." "a volcano of that size would probably full up one state on every side of Missouri my home town in Iowa would be under lava." "Interestingly it's composed of we think three separate volcanos if you... fly over the top you see three separate calderas." "this is a monster geological event." "the slope is so gradual and the peak is more than a hundred miles away and that you wouldn't know that it was a volcano." "And it's that massive." "And Olympus mons is not alone." "A few hundreds miles South-East of the mountains evenly spaced enormous volcanos." "Each larger than any of its type on Earth." "The Tharsis region isn't the only spectacular geological feature discovered by Mariner 9." "At the Eastern edge of the bulge is a colossal tear in the crust of the red planet. in honour of the Mariner 9 orbiter itself." "it's like the width of the United States." "It's this cleaved valley" "You know the Grand Canyon in the United States?" "make it the size of the United States itself and you got Mariner Valleys." "The geological mechanism that causes this immense rupture in the martian surface is yet a mistery." "Scientists can only speculate." "One mechanism which I like is that there's a place called Tharsis bulge not far away. that it's filled and could put a giant torque on the surface of Mars." "And pulled this apart like a zip." "who knows if that's true... but one needs a mechanism dfferent from many things we know to explain the existence of that." "With the stunning success of Mariner 9 the next logical step for NASA was to land a spacecraft on the actual surface of Mars." "Scientists were eager to test rock and soil samples for sign of life." "In 1976 the Viking mission reached the planet to do just that." "It had both an orbiter and a landing component." "equipped with robotic test instruments." "And we get right down on the surface and scoop up some soil and... we don't find a thing." "dead place. high above the martian surface the Viking orbiter managed to capture a mystifying image. the orbiter snapped an image of a land formation under cross lighting." "Startingly the formation resembled a human face." "As a joke NASA scientists showed the photos to the press remarking about the face they'd found on Mars." "of course the martian terrain feature doesn't look like a face at all" "Just a jumble of hills." "But in certain circles the story of the face on Mars and its NASA cover up persisted for several years." "True Mars enthusiasts on the other hand face a more sober reality following the Viking mission. interest in returning to the red planed quieted for several years. made a discovery that ultimately infused new energy and hope into the quest to uncover life on Mars." "In December 1984 found an odd specimen." "A meteorite with an unusual colour." "A sort of green hue." "Most are grey or brown. it was labeled ALH84001. the scientists assumed that it was a piece of an asteroid. and it stayed there for six or eight years." "Misclassified. under an electron microscope." "He soon realized that he was not looking at a normal meteorite." "He was looking at a piece of Mars." "The rock had characteristics that matched another Martian meteorite found in 1979. what looked like carbon globules. is the primary building block of life. headed up the research group." "My imagination was signated by the carbonates." "these carbonates are a really strange welkin." "How do they form ?" "Let's look at those ! brought even more sterling discoveries. is associated with life on Earth. revealed the structure that looked suspiciously organic." "Almost like a worm." "Could it be a trace of primitive Martian biology ?" "I think that worm is..." "Is... biologic. but it's biologic in my view." "I'd like to welcome everybody here today." "It's an unbelievable day." "It's very very exciting for me". the team was ready." "They announced their hypothesis." "ALH84001 contain possible evidence of passed life on Mars." "We conclude that..." "This is evidence for early life on Mars". but not everyone was convinced." "Labs across the globe requested samples of the rock to conduct their own analysis. the consensus was..." "That there was no consensus." "Papers were published in support of the claim but many more were published ebunking the idea." "If I could have the first slide please ? they could... were actually caused by mineral activity." "The majority of people would say that there's no really biogenic activity from this meteorite from Mars." "Those initial hypothesis was incorrect." "I would say at this point that..." "That's too simple hypothesis to take." "I don't think the work is being completed to a satisfactory end point." "To say either way." "Work on the meteorite is continuing. the ALH84001 episode has already completely reinvigorated interest in the quest for life on the red planet. has often led scientists yet again to the continent of Antarctica." "are analogues in many ways to conditions on Mars." "Seeking out life forms that managed to thrive might shed light on how and where primitive life could have once taken hold on the red planet. with thick layers of ice." "Most people said that because of the ticks ice covers :" "You would find nothing but rocks !" "There'll be very little to nothing on the bottom. is up to 15 feet thick." "Andersen and team have found a much less damaging approach." "They let a massive coil of copper tubing make an opening. throw it down on the ice and it'll melt its way down." "It takes about 24 hours to melt through the ice and then makes this very nice clean hole to dive through." "Divers enter the water wearing full-body drysuits. is a testament to the stubborn ternacity of life." "Mats of microbial organisms are thriving in frigid enviroments that receive virtually no sunlight. down on the bottom." "They won't be old to use enough light to live." "It's turned out that they can photosynthesis with light levels down to 1/10 to 1%." "For Andersen and his team the pristine mats are truly a window to the past. so these microbial communities have the opportunity to grow no matter animal or plants." "And that gives them the opportunity to grow in very special ways." "Is it possible that a similar form of microbial life could still reside somewhere beneath the frozen surface of Mars ?" "Especially at the hydrogen-rich poles ?" "Andersen and scientists like it." "Believe it is worth investigating." "T-Minus 10..." "9... 8... 7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2..." "And lifted off the Delta-2 rocket with the Mars exploration robot. to the surface of Mars. during a specific short window of time. so that the spacecraft and Mars arrive at a specific point in the planet's orbit" "at the same time." "The journey across the 34 million mile distance can take up to seven months." "And the trajectory must be perfect." "The accuracy required to go from Earth to Mars and to hit the spot you want to be at on Mars is equivalent to shoot in a basketball from Los Angeles to New York." "And have it go trough without hitting the rib." "Nothing but that." "All systems are go for entering the step landing." "We are currently 6 minutes from landing at the Gusev crater of solar hemisphere of Mars." "Point lock at 1.356 miles per hour." "Expecting parachute deploy in 5 seconds." "Parachute detected." "Expecting reach ***********." "On my mark." "Mark." "The spacecrafts were actually rovers." "Robotic vehicles capable of travelling across the martian surface and poking around." "The rovers are robot geologist." "our hands on the Martian surface." "We experience Mars through them." "They can reach out." "They can touch rocks." "There's this device called the Rat." "R.A.T. the Rock Abrasion Tool wich is a diamond-tip grinding tool that we can use and so we can actually get a window inside the rock. for telling us in detail what they look like. if they were actually phisically there on the scene." "The rovers were named Spirit and Opportunity at locations on the planet hundreds of miles from each other." "Spirit landed in an area dubbed Gusev crater." "The crater is believed to be a dried up lake bed." "Spirit might uncover signs of it." "Opportunity touched down in a region called Meridiani Planum." "because it contains an ancient layer of hematite an iron oxyd that on Earth usually formes in a spot that held liquid water." "So far neither rovers has found signs of life." "But both Spirit and Opportunity have uncovered helpful proof that liquid water was once plentiful on the surface of the Red Planet. over the martian surface creating little ripples that are still preserved in the rocks billions of years later." "But neither rovers is close enough to the tundra-like martian Poles to uncover actual frozen H2O." "launched in the summer of 2007." "and its plan is to place a stationary lander in the reaching of the martian North Pole." "equipped with a scoop." "Phoenix will excavate the polar soil." "Doctor Peter Smith of the University of Arizona heads up the project." "Our entire scientific mission is about and the properties of the ice and the ice inner action with the atmosphere." "and that's by using our robotic arm and ice and we will analyze those samples with instruments on the deck of our spacecraft." "The lander will beam signals back from the martian surface reporting the result of the remote soil and ice analysis. a new wrinkle in the saga of "Water on Mars" has revealed itself. show evidence of a very unexpected event. but nothing of interest showed up in those shots." "showed a white residue in the gully." "A residue simingly left behind by a flow of liquid." "possibly where water spurted from the ground before transforming into vapor and vanishing. but many suspect that it's a result of some form of internal heat the planet must still contain. and all of us are very hopefully" "that some places on Mars we could find hydro-thermovets." "but because liquid water implies that this might be an environment that life could developed and be maintained." "all about the search for life." "When all is said and done the engine driving all of the astonishing scientific afford to explore the red planet is the burning desire of human kind to know if life exists elsewhere in the vast reaches of space. wondered why they're here and wondered what's up there" "and wondered if there's more." "And... answering that question will sort of put us in some kind of prospective to some extent." "Finding life on Mars could also help us understand the origins of life on our own planet." "And that could actually be in the case of Mars and Earth a significant connection." "Mars developed life itself and maybe the conditions were right on Mars but they weren't right on Earth." "And yet Mars seeded our planet." "pieces of Mars arrived on Earth." "We're cells of life and that actually grew here." "Maybe we could all be martians. and moved to Mars." "of course than there's probably life all over the place. then it makes us feeling like we are a little bit more special."