Mysteries of the Red Planet


Mysteries of the Red Planet

Since our first close-up pictures of Mars in 1965, spacecraft voyages to the Red Planet have revealed a
strange yet familiar world. Like Earth, Mars has polar ice caps and clouds in its atmosphere, seasonal
weather patterns, volcanoes, canyons and other Earthly features. However, conditions on Mars vary
wildly from what we know on our own planet.

Over the past three decades, spacecraft have shown us that Mars is rocky, cold, and dry beneath its
hazy, pink sky. We've discovered that today's Martian wasteland hints at a formerly volatile world where
volcanoes once raged, meteors plowed deep craters, and flash floods rushed over the land. And Mars
continues to reveal new discoveries with each landing or orbital pass made by our spacecraft.
Among all our discoveries about Mars, one stands out above all others: the possible presence of liquid
water, either in its ancient past or preserved in the subsurface today. Water is key because almost
everywhere we find water on Earth, we find life. And on June 7, 2018, NASA announced that organic
matter had been discovered in soil samples in 3 billion-year-old mudstone at Gale Crater by the Mars
Curiosity Rover.

Is this evidence of life in the planet's past? If so, could any of these tiny living creatures still exist today?
Imagine how exciting it would be to finally discover the truth.
Join us for this media-rich event as we walk the surface of Mars in 3D and tell the story of adventure and
discovery on the Red Planet.

Presented by
Greg McCauley
Executive Director
Link Institute

Program Date: 
Saturday, August 25, 2018 - 2:00pm