Mars has been a mystery for us from a very long time.
A mystery which always attracted us, the humans on earth.
I also used to listen to the stories of extra terrestrial beings on mars with great interest and enthusiasm. The more I thought about mars, the more mars became a mysterious planet. After watching the movie Koi Mil Gaya, I also used to stare out of my window on many starry nights to see the streak of golden light from mars.
I am proud to say that I am an Indian, the only country to succeed in an expedition to Mars in the maiden attempt. I feel so happy and enthusiastic about the whole procedure that I would like to share some facts about mars.
Mangal means Mars and Yaan means journey
- It took only 50 months for the people involved to complete the venture.
- India is the first country which succeeded in Mars expedition in the maiden attempt. Other countries are the USA, the USSR and Europe.
Why Mars instead of some other planet?
- 1. Possibility to sustain life
- . Presence of water particles in the atmosphere of Mars
- Theory of the presence of methane
- Similar seasonal conditions
- Almost similar day and night duration.
Earth 24 hrs(Mars 24 hrs 39 mins) - Mars and earth are in the goldilocks zone
- Mangalyaan is the cheapest expedition to Mars
Mangalyaan was launched from Bangalore. It entered the earth’s orbit. When it reached the perigee of the first orbit, some excess fuel was fired and with that impetus it entered the second orbit. It continued to follow this same procedure till it reached the 6th orbit. When it reached the 6th orbit’s perigee, it fired the fuel which pushed it to the gravitational pull of the Sun. Thus it entered the heliocentric orbit.
As it was moving along the heliocentric orbit, the fuel was fired again and the Mangalyaan was injected into the orbit of Mars.
I came to know about all these facts about Mangalyaan, when I joined the Astro club in Trivandrum Planetarium and attended a talk and presentation by the specialists. But I am not happy about the title of the presentation. The title was Man vs Space. I don’t think that is an apt title. We have not sent Mangalyaan to Mars on a fighting mode. We wanted to know more about Mars and we did that because we care for it. So the title, I think should be Man in communion with Space.
But facts being facts we, the children on this planet earth, are still waiting for ETs from Mars.