NASA’s new robotic explorer, MAVEN, will be blasting off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in just a few minutes. And you can watch the whole thing live right here.
This mission, which will be studying Mars’ atmosphere as opposed to its surface, is going to be the first of its kind. And hopefully, MAVEN will finally give us the answers about what happened to all that water we’re almost positive once litered the Martian surface. Currently, scientists think that about 99 per cent of Mars’ atmosphere was slowly stripped away as the planet’s core cooled, eliminating the magnetic field that held that atmosphere together.
If all goes well, though, we’ll know for sure what happened soon. During its year-long mission, MAVEN will be sending data zipping back to Earth twice weekly, finally unravelling some of Mars’ best kept secrets.