Water and Life on Other Planets

1) Identify environmental conditions of planets and moons.

2) Discuss whether each planet or moon could support liquid water.

3) Recommend a destination for the probe and give pros and cons.

TIP: Probe, refers to a Space Probe. These are autonomous structures (like the rovers on mars) or they could be stationary. The main function of these probes would be to take air and soil samples, be able to analyze them and send that information back to earth. The probe's focus in this case is to be sent to the moon or planet that has the highest probability of finding liquid water, because liquid water is tied to life evolving on Earth.

• ---Water ice on the Moon and Mars might help supply future human explorers. Some of the water on Earth probably came from comets crashing into the planet. Icy comets and the ice-rich rings of Saturn hold clues to how solar systems evolve. Also, Europa is thought to have subsurface liquid water

• ---Mars is the best possible option for colonization. Venus and Mercury are way too hot and the Moon has no atmosphere meaning inhabitants would endure destructive bombardment from meteors. Mars also has a day similar in length to Earth's and most important of all, water ice can be found on its surface.
• Pros---Humans on Mars could make discoveries many times faster than robots.

---Mars can help us to learn more about how to survive on the red planet plus understand more about our own planet.

---Humans living on Mars for prolonged periods would need to be self-sustaining and require specialized human habitats, grow their own food, utilize solar energy and set up reliable water sources, just for starters.

---Humans living on Mars would, no doubt, have robots and rovers assisting them in their endeavor to safely inhabit the planet. Advances in robotics and autonomous navigation will undoubtedly become more sophisticated and filter down into our everyday lives here on Earth.

• Cons---People could starve, freeze, run out of oxygen or be hit with lethal doses of radiation, not to mention the global dust storms that occur on Mars for weeks on end.

---Communications between Earth and Mars would be very 'long-winded' conversations, as the delay is between 7 and 24 minutes, depending on where Earth is in relation to Mars.

--- The further you travel in space, the bigger the rocket you need to get there and that requires huge amounts of fuel, adding to the cost.