Why pick Mars and not another planet?
Angelit Answer: Mars is especially interesting among the known planets because it is in many ways the most similar to Earth. Mercury, Venus and Mars are like the earth in that they are ‘terrestrial planets’, meaning that they have solid surfaces you could stand on (Jupiter and the outer giant planets do not). Mercury differs from Earth in that it has essentially no atmosphere… whereas Venus and Mars do have atmospheres and winds, clouds, etc.. Venus, however, has a huge atmosphere, about 90 times as thick as ours. The result of this is that the temperature on the surface of Venus is extremely high, about 460C, or over 800F… much hotter than your oven at home can get. So it’s not very hospitable for life. Mars has a smaller atmosphere, about 200 times thinner than our own, and also is colder, typically about as cold as the coldest place on earth, or maybe colder still. But it is conceivable that there might have once been life there, or even life there now, in some exotic niches whe
