Atacama Desert, Chile
This amazing image shows the Atakama Desert in Chile, which contains regions that are virtually lifeless and where no rain has fallen for centuries. For this reason, Atacama is considered the closest thing on Earth to a Martian environment. But Mars has not always been like this: in the past, water flowed freely on its surface and a huge ocean covered virtually the whole of the planet’s northern hemisphere. Evidence of the planet’s intense endogenic activity is also borne out by the volcanoes on the uplifts in the Tharsis region (seen in the image as the dark spots on the western side of the planet) and the huge Olympus Mons. The disappearance of water and the climactic changes that have led to the current composition of Mars were probably caused by a combination of factors, including the planet's low mass, which is unable to support a sufficiently dense atmosphere, and the chaotic variations in its rotational axis. Since 1964, Mars has been the destination of numerous automatic probes that have orbited the planet and hovered over its surface. In 2003, Europe launched the Mars Express, its first mission to the red planet.
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image: Landsat image of the Atacama Desert, Chile. The Atacama Desert, on account of its
features and the substantial absence of life, is considered the place on Earth that most closely resembles Mars.
features and the substantial absence of life, is considered the place on Earth that most closely resembles Mars.
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image: NASA image shows Mars land. It is possible to distinguish the Tharsis volcano region,
the Olympus mountain and the Marineris valley.
the Olympus mountain and the Marineris valley.
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