Our 5,000-year obsession with the Red Planet: As NASA s Perseverance rover touches down today, we reflect on human s long journey to explore Mars since our ancestors first named their deities for the distant planet
NASA s Perseverance rover is set to land on Mars Thursday, February 18 where it will spend two years
The rover will investigate that Jezero crater in search of biosignatures and take samples from the area
However, humans obsession with Mars can be traced back to the third millennium BC
The Babylonians made the first record of Mars, but only explained it as their god of war
Today, NASA and other space agency hope Mars will answer one question - is there life on other planets?
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We’ve all seen them: Scenes depicting chaos, panic, and hysteria following the detection of alien life. Buildings crumble, fires rage, riots break out, societies collapse. If that’s how Earthlings are going to deal with the news that there’s life beyond on Earth, why risk looking for it?
Well, maybe it won’t be so bad after all. When humans do find evidence of alien life, “we will take it rather well,” according to recent results presented today at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Austin, Texas.
“Of course, I would also predict that if a hostile armada showed up near Jupiter, we wouldn’t be happy,” study author Michael Varnum of Arizona State University said today during a press briefing at the AAAS meeting.