Considering that Earth is such a tiny percentage of the universe, it’s strange that the vast majority of our news stories seem to be about things that occur on Earth. But recently, we’ve had a few news stories from other planets as well.
For example, it seems that scientists have discovered that Mars once used to have lakes! But not anymore. That we know of.
Of course, this is not really news for Mars. It’s news for us, because we just found out. As far as Mars is concerned, this is pretty old news.
But scientists are very excited about this, because for years, they’ve been trying to find water on Mars. They want to see if Mars has water, because if it does, that means it has life in the form of microscopic bugs that you have to filter out of that water before you drink it. Of course, they’d be Mars bugs, so who knows what they’d look like. For all we know, they might chew their cud and have split hooves.
But there are other reasons we’re looking for water. For example, if we find water, we can find out several scientific things such as whether the rover is waterproof. Also, they figure that if Mars has water, it can support Earth life, and eventually we can move there. Even though Mars seems to be a desert.
Basically, we want to know, when we get there:
- Is there intelligent life? And
- Will they offer us a beverage? We’re always thirsty getting out of the car.
That’s why scientists are excited about the new pictures they were texted from the Mars rover, named “Curiosity.” Curiosity is currently in a hole called “Gale Crater.” Gale Crater is an 87-mile crater that has a mountain in the middle, which is weird. The mountain is called “Mt. Sharp,” which is actually taller than any peak in the United States, especially since mountain height is measured as “above sea level,” and Mars doesn’t have a sea level. Curiosity landed in the crater in 2012, and has been driving toward Mount Sharp ever since, to see what would cause a mountain to develop inside a crater.
Make up your mind, Mars.
The rover set out for Mount Sharp in July 2013 and got there in September 2014, travelling a distance, in 14 months, of about five miles. This is good to know, because everyone wishes they can drive the rover around on Mars, but guess what? It goes a mile every 3 months. My guess is that they have to drive really slowly, because if it flips over, they have to send someone up there to right it, which costs billions of dollars and takes at least 10 months. Maybe that actually happened.
But when Curiosity finally got to the mountain, they found that it is actually made up of years and years of sediment from dried lakes. Not even just one lake. Apparently, it was a series of lakes. There was a lake and it dried up and another lake and it dried up and another lake and it dried up. We keep missing the lakes, apparently.
Right now there’s no lake, but stick around—you never know. Anyway, the rover isn’t going anywhere, and if it is, it’s a mile every three months. So we’ll see. It’s in what used to be the lake right now, and at its current speed, it won’t get out for at least 10 years.
Of course, it’s Mars, so you’re never sure if what you’re seeing is real. Maybe this is a mirage. We see mirages all the time. For example, in August, the rover sent back what seemed to be a picture of a woman standing on a rock. Or it could be a speck of dirt. If you blow up the picture, it looks like a woman, though we don’t know how big this woman is. It’s hard to tell, and there’s nothing else in the picture to compare it to, for scale, except the tire of the rover in the bottom corner that indicates that the picture was taken looking downward, meaning that the woman in question would have to be the size of a pebble.
Maybe Martians are really tiny.
(Pictured: Probably not a woman.)
So maybe Mars can support tiny life, but not life our size. For all we know, our rover is flattening civilizations as it’s driving. Everywhere it goes. This is why we drive slowly. What kinds of things has Curiosity killed?
So who even knows what we’re seeing up there? But we’re definitely not done. Scientists are also trying to develop another rover that will grab some dirt and bring it back to earth. They will then view the dirt in a lab that is completely sterile, except for the dirt. They also plan to put a man on Mars by 2030. They don’t say which man, but our money is on Donald Trump. But anyway, they need to send someone up to take an actual look up there, because the rover keeps sending us back inappropriate photos.
By Mordechai Schmutter
Mordechai Schmutter is a freelance writer and a humor columnist for Hamodia, The Jewish Press and Aish.com, among others. He also has five books out and does stand-up comedy. You can contact him at [email protected].
