NASA keeps doing a pretty good job at exploring Mars, the place where astronomers hope to build a human setting one day. Of course, it’s hard to believe that such an achievement will be possible in the near future. Little steps are needed towards such a goal, and astronomers keep making them.
According to ScienceAlert.com, NASA extends the mission of its Ingenuity helicopter for Mars after the tool has proven to have unexpected success. Ingenuity was supposed to perform only five flights, but instead, it went through twelve.
Better than expected
Josh Ravich, who is the head of the mechanical engineering team of Ingenuity, confirmed as quoted by ScienceAlert.com that everything works smooth:
Everything is working so well,
We’re doing better on the surface than we had expected.
Astronauts could face plenty of unpleasant situations on their way to Mars. The level of radiation could be too high, but luckily, scientists are analyzing all the possible scenarios, and they’re trying to find solutions. A new theory sustains that if a mission to Mars lasts for a maximum of four years, it would be safe to embark on it.
Yuri Shprits, a co-author of the study, said as quoted by UCLA:
This study shows that while space radiation imposes strict limitations on how heavy the spacecraft can be and the time of launch, and it presents technological difficulties for human missions to Mars, such a mission is viable.
Despite the fact that astronomers hope to live on Mars one day, the Red Planet is only the second smallest planet from our Solar System. However, Mars remains the only other planet, except for Earth, that has traits that could act as the right environment for hosting some forms of life.
If everything goes well with NASA’s upcoming Artemis mission, which implies sending humans to the Moon once again, Mars will become the next destination.
