Mars Life Death Hope essays

Mars Life Death Hope essays Venus is the 2nd closest planet to the Sun, and the closest planet to Earth. Venus can reach visual magnitudes (brightness) of -4.4, making it the brightest object in the night sky, excluding the moon. Venus was once considered Earth's twin, a swampy place with oceans and strange creatures were imagined. After sending probes such as Mariner, Pioneer Venus, Venera (which landed on Venus), Vega, Magellan and Galileo, we know that Venus is the victim of a "run-away" greenhouse effect. Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. If Venus is the planet with a runaway "greenhouse effect", then Mars is the antithesis; it doesn't have enough Carbon - Dioxide to trap enough of the Sun's energy for water to remain in liquid form. The lack of water between these two planets seems to be one of the contributing factors to the fact that there is no life on these planets. Mars is our hope for starting colonies on other planets, so we must look at how other planets close to us developed in order to tell how Mars would develop in the future. We must also see if Mars was ever capable of having water, and even supported life in the past. The atmosphere of Venus, which is mostly Carbon - Dioxide (98%), traps most of the Suns infrared rays, heating the surface of the planet beyond the melting point of lead. If there were oceans there, they boiled away long ago. Venus is believed to have a plate tectonic system that is much different from the plate system on Earth. Recent events have decided that if there is a plate system, most likely they are far beneath the surface or so far from our system that it is hard to call it the same type of system. Even though the plate system is far different from our own, it still circulates the crust to keep the planet changing. The Martian surface does not show evidence of plate tectonics, so the continuous recirculating of the crust does not occur on Mars. It is believe this would have doomed Mars from the start to the...