LAST two years have witnessed four Mars-centric events almost one after the other. China soft landed their Lander as also the Rover ‘Jhurong’ on Martian soil, USA landed their Lander and Rover ‘Perseverance’ alongwith a tiny helicopter named ‘Ingenuity’ that successfully flew on Martian sky. UAE’s maiden Mars mission ‘Hope’ encircled the Red Planet and last but not the least, our loving Mangalyaan which entered the Martian orbit back in September, 2014 ended its final lap. You must be wondering why all the space Agencies are so hell bent on the Red Planet. It is because the Homo Sapiens have started thinking Mars as their second habitat. Distance wise, Venus could have been nearer, but due to its inhospitable weather, did not get the nod. Moreover, it spins in opposite direction of Earth and being closer to Sun, is extremely hot. On the other hand, Mars has lots of features akin to our planet. It has its own atmosphere, albeit very thin; a Martian day is almost same as ours (24 hours and 37 minutes). Mars has summer and winter seasons and has wind, frost, storm, canyons and active volcanoes exactly as the Earth. North and south poles of Mars also have thick ice caps and its surface is covered with red dust.

In earlier days, it was believed that Mars contains intelligent life. The notion emerged from the observation of an Italian astronomer who noticed a number of long straight lines criss-crossing the surface of the planet. Scientists thought those lines must be canals dug out by some intelligent beings, since such razor-straight lines could not result from natural phenomenon. However, with the advent of powerful radio telescopes, the postulate was later rejected. As per the latest study of NASA, there might have been surface water on Mars in distant past which has escaped the gravity millions of years back. Water molecules might still exist, but below the surface! Let us now count some of the pluses and minuses of the Red Planet. The minus points are: The atmosphere is so thin that surface air pressure is equivalent to that of 35 kilometres above the Earth.

The average temperature varies between -150 and +20 degree centigrade, which is extremely cold as compared to our globe. Since Mars is situated 3.4 crore miles farther, Sun glows half the size as seen from Earth. Although northern hemisphere of Mars is flatter and habitable, its southern part is rough and full of deep craters. The huge volcano (Olympus Mons) is about three times higher than our Himalayas and is still active. Even if water is found below the surface, it would be really challenging to retain it, as gravity of Mars is one third that of the Earth. Air has carbon dioxide, nitrogen, argon and only 0.2% oxygen, which is vital to sustain life.

Positive takeaways are that the Martian winter can be tolerated by donning light attires as radiation of body heat is negligible and the ice cap on both the Polar Regions can perhaps be melted down by creating nuke-based artificial Suns. The two satellites of Mars, namely, Phobos and Deimos can be colonised afterwards and be utilised for precious mineral explorations. But the most prodigious idea the scientists have conceptualised so far is, to place gigantic Mylar Disks (of diameter 155 miles) on the Martian sky which would continuously reflect sunlight onto Mars to heat up the surface!