The Mars Thread

[RJDiogenes]

Thank goodness. Hopefully this mission doesn't fall victim to the Mars Curse.

[Lupine]

^Or the curse of 2020.

[RJDiogenes]

Oh, man. It will be hijacked by an amorphous Martian life form and return to Earth.

[Lupine]

Well, that would be of an improvement.

Evil alien monster: "Take me to your leader!"
Just about everyone: "Sure!"

[RJDiogenes]

[RJDiogenes]

Time to dust off the old Mars thread (which is tough when you've got planet-girdling dust storms). We've got three missions arriving this month: An orbiter, which is already there, and two landers, one of which includes a new rover. If they all make it, which is fairly dicey when it comes to Mars, we should have some amazing info rolling in. Perhaps even fossil evidence of past life.

[Lupine]

^Oh! I forgot to post about Tianwen-1 reaching Mars orbit.

[RJDiogenes]

Wow, those are beautiful. I don't think we've ever seen action shots of a probe entering orbit like that before.

Looks like the Chinese mission successfully entered orbit the next day. Tomorrow afternoon, Perseverance and Ingenuity will hopefully be landing successfully.

It's a good year for Mars.

[Lupine]

Perseverance is on Mars!

And we got a first image!

[RJDiogenes]

And she is safe! What a relief.

That's a great picture. I think we'll be inundated before too long. Probably some Martian music, too. I think I read that she has a microphone. Or maybe it's the Chinese lander.

[Lupine]

^It's this one that has the microphone.

[Lupine]

It's amazing to think that there's a slight chance we could discover evidence of alien life before the end of the year.

[Lupine]

And I forgot that my name is now on Mars!

[RJDiogenes]

So cool. I'll have to get in on that the next time they do it. That's probably as close to immortality as we'll ever get.

[scottydog]

It's amazing to think that there's a slight chance we could discover evidence of alien life before the end of the year.

Well they've definitely landed in the ideal spot to find signs of life. What happens if we bring samples of that Martian life to Earth, only to have it smuggled out of the lab and introduced to our planet?