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Mars is such a fascinating Red planet, Because of the presence of iron oxide, it gives the reddest appearance in satellite images. Although we had limited information about mars before the space age, the idea that astronomers like Percival Lowell noted markings on mars that reminded them of fluvial landforms such as canal traces gave us hope of possible extraterrestrial life.
In recent years, the planet mars have been explored extensively through artificial satellites that have been launched from Earth. Out of 26 orbiters, only 12 were successful. The first successful mars mission was Mars-2(orbiter) in 1971 by the erstwhile USSR, later on, countries like the USA, Russia, and India sent various orbiting satellites to mars. Out of 5 flyby missions, only three missions were successful: - MARINER 4(1965), MARINER 6(1969) & MARINER 7(1969) by NASA.
MARINER 4 provided the first close-up photographs of Mars.
As mars have a thin atmospheric layer it makes it easy for remote sensing activities and gives great opportunities to study the planet through remote sensing data. A lot of things can be studied, especially landforms, mineral deposits and etc. But the major focus is always on the presence of water. So the future remote sensing technologies may have new various methods, right now we can use light waves to figure out what minerals are there on the surface of Mars but maybe there will be some other way that we haven’t invented yet to find whether there’s actually life there on those other planets.
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