Publisher's Synopsis
The small armada of robotic space probes that recently raced across the void to Mars were there because, for a brief moment in the celestial clockwork, Mars lay closer to our planet than at any time since Neanderthals walked the Earth. Some of these ventures failed - the tragic story of Beagle 2, to date Britain's sole attempt at space exploration, plucked the nation's heartstrings - but some triumphantly succeeded. Now the evidence is of water, both ancient and modern.
Acclaimed science writer Michael Hanlon (Senior Science Commentator on the Daily Mail and author of The Worlds of Galileo) has had access to the latest NASA and European Space Agency Mars exploration missions and is uniquely placed to explain the recent findings and what they could mean for the future. Together with a foreword by Jim Garvin, NASA's lead Mars scientist, this presents the clearest picture yet in our understanding of the real Mars, as well as placing the new evidence in historical context.
A century on, Mars fever is back. As Hanlon admits, there is a need for caution - where Lowell spoke of canals, scientists now project their own visions of a New Mars. Yet recent findings undoubtedly bring us a step closer to the truth. The detection by Moessbauer spectrometer of large quantities of sulphates in rocks and new analysis of rock textures and cross-bedding now provides the clearest evidence yet of a watery past. Where there is water, there can be life.
