Here's why we should forget about Mars right now and return to the moon

Hopes of colonising Mars rest on the premise that we could terraform the red planet, making it habitable for humans with a breathable atmosphere and clement temperatures. However, a recent study cast doubt on the idea, concluding that terraforming is impossible with present technology.

With colonising Mars on hold, it’s a good time to reevaluate the relationship we have with our nearest cosmic neighbour, the moon. The first successful lander on the moon was the Russian spacecraft Luna 9 in 1966. This mission revealed the barren lunar landscape in fine detail for the first time.

Since the dawn of the space age, there have been over 60 successful missions to the moon, including eight that were manned. The most famous being Apollo 11 in July 1969 which resulted in the first human presence on the moon.

These space pioneers broadened our understanding of Earth and the universe. The Apollo 15 mission of 1971, for example, recovered the so-called “Genesis Rock”, one of the oldest rock samples ever found from a crater on the moon. Analysis of other surface samples supported the “giant impact hypothesis”, a now predominant view that the moon formed from a giant impact on the Earth some 4.5 billion years ago.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captures tiny Martian moon Phobos

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has beamed back images of the tiny Martian moon Phobos in its orbital trek around the red planet.

Over the course of 22 minutes, Hubble took 13 separate images, allowing astronomers to create a time-lapse video showing the diminutive moon's orbital path.

The Hubble observations were intended to photograph Mars, and the moon's cameo appearance was a bonus, scientists said.

A football-shaped object just 26x21x17 kilometres, Phobos is one of the smallest moons in the solar system.

The moon completes an orbit in just seven hours and 39 minutes, which is faster than Mars rotates.

Rising in the Martian west, it runs three laps around the Red Planet in the course of one Martian day, which is about 24 hours and 40 minutes.

It is the only natural satellite in the solar system that circles its planet in a time shorter than the parent planet's day.

About two weeks after the Apollo 11 manned lunar landing on July 20, 1969, NASA's Mariner 7 flew by the Red Planet and took the first crude close-up snapshot of Phobos.
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