Mars is the most similar planet. Similarities, mars is like no other planet. T is a unique world it was elusive for hundreds of years. Aman telescopes show it was red sphere. It was estimated to be half the size of earth. One of the earliest known representations of the planet was drawn in 1559 indicating markings on the surface. It was shown that mars rotated on its access. About 24 and one half hours. That the tiltd to of its access exposed to the polar regions ultimately to the sunlight. Each hemisphere has a summer and winter. Since mars rotates the sun. It is almost twice as long as earth. Later mappings of the planet has made large dark and light regions as continents and oceans. The water, a greenish blue. 1877, and italian astronomer discovered channels resembling the finest threads of a spiders web. , he founded an observatory to study these findings. Called the massive irrigation systems. Sciencefiction writers populated the city with terrible features. In the 1960s, a spacecraft flew by mars and photographed about 10 of the surface. The photographs revealed the landscape much like the moon. In 1971, the spacecraft orbited mars. It and build a new and unexpected world. Hemisphere was couched by it many meteorites. Was arthern hemisphere vast plain with few craters. The plateau that joins this is cut by a vast and deep canyon. It possibly adapted to marss changing conditions. In 1975, 2 viking spain spacecraft was launched. One of its principal objectives was the presence of learning organisms. The Communication System in pasadena california. On june 19, 1976 the first a journeyived after of 400 million miles. Cameras were, its turned. Covered aams territory the size of texas. One of lois regions. 20 flight controllers looked at the orbiter. The signal traveling at the took 19 minutes to reach the spacecraft. The instrument analyzed the properties of the thin martian atmosphere. 200 feet per second. Acs is close to vertical. Fantastic [applause] of 12e a touchdown time hours, 12 minutes and decibel one seconds. I am assuming we must be sitting right on the x. Theyconds after landing, scanned pictures of the service. Later, andlf an hour youot the first seven lines can see gray and white levels. We were looking at the surface of mars and it was clear and not dusty. It was a miracle. Instant, it was wiped off tv monitors. It extends from the lander. It was littered with rocks. The following day viking sent back the first color picture. 45 days after these historic events, biking to landed in an area. It was produced by volcanic processes or meteor impact. Conducted experiments on the surface. Around. Ter swung it took High Resolution photographs. It was formed from the garrison dust. In the formation of the planet, heat is relieved. Because the heat cant escape as rapidly, it is reached eventually where the interior meds. It caused a flurry of rock and dust to go across the surface. The atmosphere may have been and for rivers to flow. Gradually, the warm blanket of the atmosphere evolved into the thin, dry Carbon Dioxide atmosphere we find their today. Because of this, mortar water cant exist in liquid form. While there are no oceans or rivers on mars, there is more water than was expected. The residual polar cap on the water and ice mixed with dust. Suggest thatnts there is a vast reservoir of ice in the surface. One can think of the residual polar cap as the tip of an iceberg for treating from rock. The water vapor condenses to form clouds that remain in the atmosphere. There is frequently an ice hayes thats evaporate. On earth, the oceans heat and moisture and the heat and air currents interacts to produce complex weather patterns. Mars, the weather doesnt very much from daytoday. Like remote weather station honored, vikings meteorology instrument measures the atmospheric pressure, wind and wind direction. 100ratures range from just after dawn to 22 degrees in the midafternoon. East changedom the to like winds from the south after midnight. Maximum wind speed is 50 miles per hour. Per hour. S the heating of dust particles in the air creates violent dust storms. That reach 150 miles an hour, they may blanket the entire planet in just a few days. In order to understand the geology and physics. We placed an open circuit wind tunnel in the channel and art. Ble to operate in this particular series of we have placed a model in the tunnel floor and want to determine the zone of erosion and deposition around the crater. In this particular case, we are going to let the wind blow across the crater and see what goes on with the erosion and deposition around it. Announcer that is the most common feature around mars on to wind. Ce related it is followed from the global dust storms. The region in which the light layer of material reveals a darker surface. Patterns define the wind flow. To the geologist, the features seen in tens of thousands of photographs transmitted by the what has shaped the surface of mars. Large craters of and basins by asteroids and. Eteorites the action of volcanoes. Expansion of the crust as expanded. Into the channels created by water and abrasive particles through tens of millions of years. The age and sequence of the features is found in the number and condition of the craters. Those areas with fewest craters are assumed to be the youngest. Here, a fresh crater overlays and ancient, it erosion one. Here, it is eroded by water or wind. Fresh taste and to a crater is a cluster of rings, craters that have been buried to varying depths. The millions of years, repeated flows of lava build the volcanic craters of mars. Other. Larger than any the largest rises three times higher than Mount Everest and is broad enough to cover all of the volcanoes that cover the hawaiian islands. That cutsg gash isough mars plus equatorial up to 400 miles wide it cant four miles below the cratered surface. Canyon walls are delayed. Tributary volcanoes or are scarred by landslides leaving cliffs and surfaces. Extending for 30 miles on the canyon floors are sand dunes, suggesting some of the debris caused by the collapse of canyon walls was removed by wind. These ancient channels that resemble dry riverbeds on earth could have been formed by wind storms. But the vast channel system and collapsed terrain extending hundreds of miles across the low diamines soaring to above theof feet channel bed testify to a process without any parallel on earth. Photographed the two cratered moons of mars. Marked by striations which upon closer view are several miles long. ,nd the smaller outer moon viking, traveling at 30 miles an hour and passing, could observe boulders as large as 100 feet across. The geologic record of the planet suggests mars, like the earth, has experienced periodic change of climate. The best evidence is seen in the strange solar patterns of mars. Are buried ground within the north polar ice cap. There are numerous small terraces in eroded from small rocks. This is a model of layered terrain, in the area about 40 miles across. Large scarsed the represent cycles of change which occurred simultaneously. Marsisolation in the orbit above the sun, it is alternately warm in cold for tens of thousandsmillions of years. During the cold time, mixtures of dust and ice were deposited in a series of nearhorizontal layers, obscuring the underlying typography. Climatetime of warmer followed and in erosion said in, cutting deep valleys into the icy mass of the polar caps. After the erosion cycle, new layers were laid down. And another episode of erosion followed. Terraces obscure few gated by another indicates the climactic change turns on and off. It is the first evidence of climactic change on a planet other than the earth. The speculation about changes in the atmosphere and climate are closely related to the notion that life in some form might exist on mars. Earth, life developed several billion years ago at a time when the Overall Properties of mars into the earth were very similar. Over billions of years, mars and the earth efiled separately. However, mars today still has chemicals on its surface and atmosphere, temperatures and pressures, in which we believe life can exist. The viking lander was equipped with three life detection determined to test for life processes familiar to us on earth. On earth, all living organisms organize with the environment is environment with a process called catalyst them. Earth, Carbon Dioxide is realized into the life forms. By green plants and some microorganisms do the resource the reverse in the process of photosynthesis. They remove Carbon Dioxide and using sunlight as an Energy Source can change the Carbon Dioxide into organic matter and release the waste. If the life on if mars indicated they were during the same, then we can assume the possible existence of organisms on the planet. Our results on mars in certain experiments gave us data which seem to mimic the metabolism of living organisms. However, careful analysis indicates it is probably the result of chemical rather than biological processes. Announcer on earth, all onlogical systems are based organic compounds. And it was believed life on mars would be the same. The notion strengthened when experiments on earth demonstrated organic materials can be formed under simulated martian conditions. We used finely powdered Minerals Like those expected on the martian surface and then we added traces of radioactive vapor and Carbon Dioxide at low pressure to simulate martian sunlight. We are radiated the mixture. When we heated the sample and captured the gases forms, our radiation counter showed the Carbon Monoxide in water had been converted to organic compounds. Fighting been instruments failed to detect organic compounds of any kind. That fact in the opinion of some observers, increase the odds against the existence of living organisms on mars. If we were able to do 1000 experiments on mars and to do these in a wide variety of places on mars, in the canyons, on the polar caps, in some deep areas of the surface and if in all of these experiments we got negative results, then the answer to the question, is there life on mars . Almost certainly be no. But on the basis of just a few experiments done on just two sites on the planet, it would be unscientific for us to come to that conclusion. All we can really say for sure across someave run very interesting chemistry, the kind of chemistry we do not see in surface samples of the earth or the mont and that is about where we are at the moment. Today, in laboratories across the nation, scientists are trying to simulate the results we obtained on mars. Scientists are concentrating on the radiation experiments to see whether solar Energy Acting on mars could have produced this ors to account for the other experiments. Assuming these chemicals were there and testing one or another to see whether they can attempt the results attained. Announcer the question of life on mars is only one of the and exhausting number of questions for which we seek to gain answers in space. Questions about the origin and association of the planet with our own and of species. Answers is a goal of planetary exploration and the journeys of all spacecraft to of ther and far reaches solar system are beginning to provide some of the answers. Announcer on july 1, 1976, the smithsonians air and space to theopened its stores public with president gerald ford on hand. Friday marks the 40th anniversary and cspans live coverage begins. Spacel see oneofakind artifacts, including the spirit of st. Louis and the apollo lunar module. Learn more about the event as we speak to the direct or, the curator, and the chair of the museums history department. Conversation. He ate friday evening beginning 6 00 eastern on cspan3s American History tv. Announcer the hardfive riemer he season is a with historic conventions to follow this summer. Watch cspan as the delegates considered the nomination of the first woman ever to make had it a Major Political party. Watch it live on cspan. Listen on the cspan radio app. Atget video on demand cspan. Org. You have a front row seat to both conventions on cspan, all beginning up on monday. July 16. Coming up next, Justice Ruth Bader inspired and Sonia Sotomayor shared information about the Supreme Court food tradition. Including topics of conversation at shared meals. We will also hear from the Supreme Court curator. This took place at the Smithsonian Museum of natural cspan ande on washington, d. C. See sore thrilled to maeo