Biology of Mars, Planetary Oceans Next on List for Space Exploration

Washington, DC - infoZine - Scripps Howard Foundation Wire - The Planetary Society held a panel discussion Tuesday to talk about NASA's upcoming missions, which include taking a closer look at Mars atmosphere and biology, and visiting other planets moons and their oceans.

These missions will focus on the presence of life in the past and if these planets are habitable.

Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASAs Mars Exploration Program, said the success of previous missions to Mars, such as Curiosity and Maven, have led scientists to become interested in the planet on a biological level.

Mars has the key, he said.

The 2020 Mars Rover will use a similar design as Curiosity, but it will have different instruments, which are being developed now. It will look for signs of life and gather sounds.

Even if nothing happened on Mars, it might have the best record of how life started in our solar system, Meyer said.

By 2025, NASA expects to send humans to an asteroid, and by the 2030s, humans will land on Mars as part of the Journey to Mars program. This will be a one-way ride.

Kevin Hand, deputy chief scientist for Jet Propulsion Laboratory Science at NASA, is working on an ocean exploration - looking for planets with oceans. So far, four of Jupiters 63 known moons have water and show promise for life.

These moons with sub-surface liquid water oceans are changing our understanding of what it means for a world to be habitable, Hand said.

Europa is Hand's first pick. He said Europa's ocean, 62 miles deep, may have similar chemical processes with water mixing with rocks and the sea floor to Earth's deepest ocean, 7 miles.

Read more:
Biology of Mars, Planetary Oceans Next on List for Space Exploration