Category: Red Planet Mars

Your drawings are good speculation. Modern scientists are working on very similar concepts in the quest for life on other worlds! Meanwhile, in classic science fiction stories and films Martians will always be with us. VISUAL 33 (still): Paul’s Martian [Fade off Paul’s Martian.] What do you think of this drawing made by an early […]

Exobiology Activity Mars missions have revealed Mars as a world of exciting new possibilities for life: as a potential abode of life in the past, perhaps still harboring life which has adapted to the increasingly harsher environment. But the possibilities are mostly for microscopic life. The idea of intelligent beings on Mars sounds as fantastic […]

In the summer of 1976, two Viking spacecraft entered orbit around Mars. Two landers detached, descended, and touched down successfully. DIGITAL EFFECT: Land On MarsApproach Mars, and then fade the scene off to land on Mars, with a Martian panorama visible. VISUAL 16 (still): Viking Lander Soon, we saw the first photographs ever taken of […]

DIGITAL EFFECT: Go To Mars Lift off Earth, and move away to view Earth from space. Introduce a slow orbital motion. DIGITAL EFFECT: Fly to Mars Move to Mars in two stages. In the first stage, turn towards Mars, and approach Mars so it appears as an appreciable dot. In the second stage move close […]

VISUAL 5 (still): Lowell Sharp-eyed observers with telescopes discovered the length of a Martian day is 24 hours and 37 minutes — not much more than one Earth day. They measured the planet’s smaller size, a little more than half the diameter of Earth. They noticed that many of Mars’ mysterious markings seem to darken […]

We have discovered Mars just as it was when it was first discovered: using our unaided eyes. Just about 400 years ago, Galileo discovered a new way of looking at Mars: through a telescope. DIGITAL EFFECT: Mars Through TelescopeZoom up a “telescopic” view of Mars, attached to Mars, in an “eyepiece ring.” VISUAL 2 (optional […]

Could one of these points of light do something different? We have been watching for many minutes now, and we know all the points of light in the sky appear to turn very slowly throughout the night. But there isn’t much happening so far, and no one star stands out yet. Maybe we should go […]

Can we discover Mars right now? Everybody, please look all around the night sky, and let’s see how many orange-red points of light we can find. Please let me know when you have found an orange to red point of light, so we can point it out to everybody. Turn up reading lights partially; when […]