The Planets and Beyond

Mars.

The red planet.

Many scientists believe that the first person

to set foot on its surface is alive today.

Perhaps it's you.

If it is you, then welcome to your ultimate travel guide.

Using real images and data,

we will take you to some of the most jaw-dropping landscapes

discovered in our solar system

right here on Mars.

We don't have anything like this on earth.

Places that may change

the way you think about our own world...

Is there life beyond the earth?

This is probably one of the most profound questions

that's ever been asked by the human mind.

...on a journey that will test the endurance

of any traveler.

Traveling to Mars is not for the faint of heart.

At the dawn of the next golden age of exploration,

here's your quintessential guide to the martian frontier.

Oh, it's beautiful.

Have you ever dreamed about traveling out of this world?

My name is Mike Massimino,

and I turned that fantasy into a reality

when I space-walked to repair the Hubble space telescope.

Great job, Mike.

Now as we expand our knowledge of our solar system

from Mercury to the cosmic unknowns,

I want to take you on a personal journey to...

captions paid for by discovery communications

welcome to "the planets."

I'm Mike Massimino.

Ever since my space missions,

I've thought about which planet in the solar system

I'd like to visit.

Hands down, it's Mars.

So far, humans have only touched down on our moon,

but that could change.

NASA is planning on sending its first astronaut to Mars

as soon as 2030,

but there's a whole lot more

we need to find out about our neighbor before we visit.

The red glow of Mars

is a constant feature in our night sky.

But it's only when viewed up close

that this rusty planet begins to reveal its secrets.

It promises to wow any visitor

who just traveled the seven months it would take

to get there from the earth by spaceship.

Other than our home planet,

there is no world we know in such detail.

That's thanks to the numerous satellites and rovers

we've sent there over the past 50 years.

And the landscapes they have looked down upon

tell astonishing stories.

Vast plains riddled with hundreds of thousands

of craters, deep canyons, and strange rock formations,

and views not seen anywhere on earth.

We've photographed every corner of the planet,

and plans are now under way to send the first humans to Mars.

But what does it take to get there?

How can we survive on the surface?

And where are the best places to explore?

For those ready for adventure,

the best place to start is a well-known martian landmark --

Gale crater,

a vast scar on the planet

and home to NASA's flagship rover, curiosity, since 2012.

The crater itself dwarfs any similar features here on earth.

Every day, curiosity sends back detailed images

from within the crater.

This is one of them.

And here, at the data science institute,

professor Sanjeev Gupta is part of the team studying them.

This is the crater rim over here.

This is 150 kilometers in diameter.

It's a really big feature.

And there, in this view over here,

what we can see is mount sharp.

That's 5 kilometers high.

That sits in the center of the crater, so it's really amazing

'cause you really get a sense of this mountain

that's sort of towering high above us.

That's a mountain over 93 miles across

and over 3 miles high.

But professor Gupta isn't simply enjoying the view.

Today, we know Mars as a dry, desolate world,

but some images suggest that wasn't always the case.

Gale crater was chosen as the landing site for curiosity

after a very lengthy selection process.

Orbiters had discovered evidence

that the rocks at the base of mount sharp --

so, the rocks that we can see over here --

had evidence for hydration.

Long before curiosity left earth,

satellite images like this

hinted there was more to this crater than meets the eye.

And what's beautiful in this image

is that you can see these canyons or valleys

carved into the crater rim,

and this is really suggestive

that water flowed down the crater rim

and eroded these canyons.

Secondly, we can see all these beautiful layers here

that form the base of mount sharp.

These layers are enriched in hydrated minerals.

So, those are minerals that contain water.

Curiosity's mission?

To follow the elusive trail of water on Mars.

So, essentially, the orbital images

provide us clues on where to go,

but we really need to be on the ground,

looking carefully at these rocks from a few meters away,

and that's why we send rovers to Mars.

Once the rover touched down,

it quickly began picking up more clues.

These are actually pebbles

that are a few centimeters in diameter.

What you can see when you look at the pebble outlines

is that they have rounded shapes.

So they've been, basically, rounded

during a transport process.

And they're too large

to be moved and rounded by wind processes,

and so the only way we can actually get this rounding

is by water flow.

I think it's irrefutable

that there was once water flowing at the surface on Mars,

based on the geological evidence.

But even with its smooth surface,

Gale crater wouldn't be the best landing site on Mars.

So the question remains, where should you first touch down?

This canyon is Valles Marineris,

named after the mariner 9, the NASA mission that discovered it.

The scale of the canyon is breathtaking.

It is like the Grand Canyon on earth, but supersized.

In places, its walls plunge 6 miles down,

a unique geological formation

not matched anywhere else on the planet.

And it's thanks to this geology that this vast canyon system

makes the ideal landing site for martian explorers.

Astrogeologist Dr. Jim rice is confident in this conclusion.

He's been involved in selecting Mars landing sites

for every NASA mission since Mars pathfinder in 1994.

You want something fairly flat, not too rocky, not too dusty.

And because we use parachutes to help slow us down

in the entry to the martian atmosphere,

we're gonna be lower in elevation.

And the views while landing would be jaw-dropping.

Valles Marineris is a great spot

because it's basically kind of like the Grand Canyon here.

It's like someone has taken --

a giant surgeon with a scalpel making an incision

and opened up the crust of the planet,

allowing you to see deeper down,

and deeper down in geology is further back in history.

It's this view inside the planet

that is the big draw for Dr. rice,

but for most of us, the epic scale alone

would be enticing enough.

Now, that canyon is 10 times longer

than the Grand Canyon here,

it's four times deeper, and about 12 times wider.

Another way to think about it is,

the vast expanse of this canyon system,

the length of it would be from New York City to Los Angeles.

So that truly is the grand canyon of the solar system.

Valles Marineris would provide the ultimate draw

for any martian visitor.

But it's not just the views that are attractive.

Touching down inside Valles Marineris

could help answer long-held questions

about the chasm's formation.

Images like this, taken from orbit,

give us some clues to its history.

Once theory is that ancient volcanoes

ripped apart the surface,

creating a rift that running water continued to carve.

But only by landing there can we gather the conclusive proof.

What you want to do as a geologist

is get to outcrop like we see right here,

a slab of rock you can get up and interrogate

and kind of taste, so to speak, with your instruments.

If you're a martian coming to earth, you'd probably come here,

because you'd get a good idea

of the geologic history of the earth

from the rim all the way down to the floor.

You know, most of these rocks

record oceans that came and went,

mountain chains that came and went,

deserts that came and went.

You know, on Mars, I think it'd be safe to say

you'd go back 3, 3 1/2, maybe even 4 billion years

at the floor of the canyon down there.

I'd go in a heartbeat.

Would you take the chance to travel to Mars?

Visiting the red planet is not just about sightseeing.

Once you get there, you'll have to survive

some of the harshest conditions in the entire solar system.