Welcome to Mars

Three billion years ago, Mars may once have been warm and wet. If liquid water did flow on early Mars, could life have evolved there?

The more we know about life on Earth, the more likely it seems that life could exist elsewhere. Over recent years, micro-organisms have turned up in the most inhospitable niches on Earth, where nobody previously thought anything could survive.

An energy source and water seem to be the only two essential prerequisites for life common to these niches. If water flowed freely on Mars and, like the Earth, the planet received sunlight and had its own internal energy source, the odds on primitive life thriving for at least some time during the planet’s history are reasonably good.

Recent space missions have revealed a wealth of knowledge about Mars, but also raised many questions. What forces, for example, created the spectacular features in the Martian landscape? When did they cease? Or do some still act today?

Was early Mars really warm and wet? If so, where did the water and atmosphere go? Did life evolve there? And is primitive life still thriving, perhaps associated with underground aquifers?

The Mars Express mission will help to answer these questions and many more by mapping the Martian sub-surface, surface, atmosphere and ionosphere from orbit and by conducting observations and experiments on the surface.

Join us as we get closer day by day to the Red Planet, to learn more about the Mars Express mission, and Mars itself.