Warning: There are spoilers ahead if you haven't read the book.

"The Martian," the sci-fi bestseller praised for its exhaustive attention to scientific detail, has a movie adaptation coming out on Oct. 2.

The movie closely follows the novel and, like the book, is chock full of science — and emphatic, curse-ridden one-liners.

The story follows astronaut Mark Watney, played by Matt Damon, and his struggle to survive on Mars after his crew is forced to leave him behind. How do you survive on an inhospitable planet when you're stranded there alone?

"In the face of overwhelming odds, I'm left with only one option — I'm gonna have to science the shit out of this," Damon says in the trailer for the movie.

And that's exactly what he does. Keep scrolling to see 12 feats of science that Damon's character pulls off on the red planet in hopes of staying alive.

In the opening scene, a Martian dust storm breaks off a communications antenna and part of it gets lodged in Watney's body.

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Blinded by the storm, Watney's crew believes he died and escapes without him. Watney wakes up with no choice but to "science the shit" out of Mars to survive.

FEAT OF SCIENCE #1: Watney has to pull out the antenna piece lodged in his torso. He uses a pair of medical pliers, and then staples the wound closed like a professional surgeon.

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Mars is a freezing, oxygen-less, barren wasteland.

So why do we want to go there again?

Planetary Society CEO Bill Nye appeared on astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson's StarTalk Radio show in March and gave a great answer.

The Planetary Society recently released a report saying we could have humans on Mars as early as the 2030s. So getting humans to Mars may be technically and financially possible, but scientists agree it won't exactly be the easiest place to explore.

Nye gave a few reasons why going to Mars will be hellish during the show:

One, there's no good supply of liquid water. Two, if you stood on the planet's equator in the middle of summer, the temperature would still be minus 20 degrees.

"But the main thing I think you would pick up on right away is there's no air," Nye said.

You would suffocate in no time.

Companies like Mars One and SpaceX are already working on plans to set up their own permanent human colonies on Mars. Any colonizers would have to live in submarine-like pods just to survive in the hostile conditions though.

Rightfully, StarTalk co-host Chuck Nice asked the question that most listeners were probably wondering at this point in the show:

"In light of this conversation, why do we want to go there?"

Nye said we should go to Mars because it's the next logical place to explore, and when you start exploring, two things happen: You'll make discoveries and you'll have an adventure.

If humans go to Mars then scientists estimate we could make discoveries 10,000 times faster than the best robot spacecraft explorers we have now, Nye said. And even if robots become so advanced that they can compete with a human explorer, that wouldn't change anything, Nye said. We'd still want to explore ourselves. Lust for adventure and the tantalizing idea that we could discover something new would still exist.

Going to Mars for exploration is one thing though, Nye said. Setting up a colony there is something entirely different.

"I would like to go to Mars but I want to come back," Nye said. "And I don't want to go to Mars to live. I don't think that is all the way thought through, in my opinion."

You can listen to the full StarTalk episode below:

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Two MIT engineering students just faced off with a private company that wants to send people on a one-way trip to Mars — and one group won by a landslide.

The debate stemmed from the students' scathing critique of Mars One's plan to set up a permanent human colony on Mars. That report, published in 2014, triggered widespread criticism of the company's too-low $6-billion budget, unrealistic timeline, and general lack of preparedness for the challenges of Mars.

On Aug. 13 at the Mars Society Conference, two of the MIT students picked apart Mars One's plan again — this time in front of CEO Bas Lansdorp and Barry Finger, chief engineer and director of life support systems for Paragon Space Development Corporation.

The public debate was pointedly titled "Is Mars One Feasible?"

The students, Sydney Do and Andrew Owens, came armed with charts, graphs, and data, all neatly presented in a killer PowerPoint presentation. Here's how it went down.

The MIT argument

In case you're not familiar with Mars One, Do and Owens summed up the basics of the company's project in one slide:

Mars One likes to point to the Apollo moon program as evidence that its mission plan will work. Lansdorp often reminds everyone that President John Kennedy knew NASA didn't have a plan when he charged it to land a man on the moon before 1970. NASA pulled it off in only eight years.

The MIT team immediately crushed that argument. Mars One has existed for four years, and has yet to secure the required funding or negotiate contracts for any of the spacecraft, Mars habitats, and life support that future colonists will need. Meanwhile, Apollo had the US government's scientists and coffers at its disposal.

The students also pointed to another example: Virgin Galactic. The company, founded by entrepreneur Richard Branson, has spent more than 10 years and $600 million but has yet to achieve its goal of making space tourism available. And that's arguably a much less complex goal than sending people to live on Mars.

Then MIT tackled Mars One's budget. The company claims it will only take $6 billion to land the first crew of four astronauts on Mars.

They made a striking case by comparing the cost of the Apollo program to Mars One's proposed budget to the equipment required to get the job done:

One of the largest problems with Mars One's plan is that we don't have to technology to pull it off yet.

For example, Mars One wants to land a huge rover on the surface of the red planet, but we haven't achieved that with one of the (huge) size they have in mind. We'll need a much more advanced landing method, as the MIT students pointed out:

Lansdorp has repeatedly said Mars One will keep its budget down by making the trips one-way — no need to finance a return trip.

The problem, said the MIT students, is that a one-way ticket means Mars One is committing to resupplying its colonists for the rest of their lives. They'll need a fresh stock of food and spare parts for their habitats and life support machines at least every couple years. And those shipments won't be cheap:

Mars One's counterattack

After MIT's stacked opening argument, Lansdorp and Finger had the chance to present Mars One's side.

Predictably, Lansdorp opened with the Apollo program argument. But he's also the first to tell you that Mars One has a long way to go.

"Our plan will change," Lansdorp said during the debate. "It will look nothing like what you see in the pictures."

Then Finger went up to the podium. He made the case that Paragon (the space development company supporting Mars One) is well-equipped to design the life support machines that colonists will need, including breathable air on Mars. The MIT students agreed with him on this point.

But Finger pretty much conceded to all the other points the MIT students made— essentially agreeing that the Mars One plan is too generalized and nonspecific. He pointed out that Mars One desperately needs a primary contractor who knows how to build all of these satellites, rovers, and space habs that its colonists will need.

Lansdorp took over again and argued the only thing holding back Mars One is funding. If it had $6 billion in the bank right now, he said, then it could start commissioning the technical studies and negotiating contracts with suppliers.

And Lansdorp has always been relentlessly optimistic about getting that funding. He says it could happen at any moment.

"It's a crazy enough project that positive surprises can happen," he said. "It's so ambitious, and I think crazy is the right word, that we might actually get a phone call from a billionaire who says 'I want to make this happen, I want the first city on Mars to be called Gates-ville or Slim city.'" (Presumably a reference to billionaires Bill Gates and Carlos Slim).

In the rebuttals that followed, Lansdorp said that it's entirely possible that the budget could inflate two or three times its current size. But he said the cost doesn't matter to investors. They're more worried about the risks, like if a rocket explodes, or if another company beats Mars One to the red planet.

And again Lansdorp said the Mars One plan will likely change. The budget and timeline on the company's website is simply based on the best information it had at the time, Lansdorp said.

"We'll continue to update our plan with the data we get," Lansdorp said.

The verdict

The final moments of the debate made it pretty clear who won: the MIT students.

They circled back to the point that the Mars One mission is fundamentally unsustainable because the cost grows as the number of people living on Mars increases. Both parties agreed a critical step is to figure out a way to efficiently build things and grow food on Mars. (Maybe they can take a lesson from Mark Watney in "The Martian").

But the most pressing problem is that everything about Mars One's plan is still preliminary and needs further research and development.

"The topic of this debate is 'Is Mars One feasible?'" Do said. "But these projects are very complex. It's a house of cards, if any of them them don't work, then the whole thing fails."

"If you're still developing concepts, then you don't really have a plan," he added.

It seems safe to conclude that in its current state, the Mars One plan is not feasible.

You can watch the whole debate play out below:

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Right now, Mars is a frozen, lifeless, and entirely inhospitable place.

Yet the Red Planet holds great promise, and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently discussed its future with comedian and television host Stephen Colbert.

Musk, who hopes to build a colony of 1 million people on Mars, told Colbert that there are two ways to warm the global temperatures on Mars, which would help transform it from a barren wasteland into a hospitable, Earth-like planet.

"There's a fast way and a slow way," Musk told Colbert on the "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.""The fast way is drop thermonuclear weapons over the poles."

The slow way is to transport greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide and methane, from Earth to Mars and release them into the Martian atmosphere.

Since then, Musk has tweeted: "Btw, not saying we *should* nuke Mars -- just layin' out a few options …"

But unfortunately for Musk, neither of these ways are practical or plausible, according to Christopher Impey, an astronomer at the University of Arizona and author and co-author of over a dozen popular science books, including "Frontiers of Astrobiology" and "Dreams of Other Worlds."

Luckily for us, however, there is a way. Redirect a near-Earth asteroid toward Mars and slam it into one of the Martian poles — or even better, redirect two asteroids and slam them into each pole.)

The Martian poles hold the key

That's one thing Musk and Impey agree on: If we ever hope to warm up Mars, we must target the Martian poles.

That's because the poles contain vast amounts of carbon dioxide ice — especially during the Martian winter. But with enough energy, you could transform that CO₂ ice into its gaseous state, an effective greenhouse gas.

If you can increase the amount of CO₂ in the Martian atmosphere enough, you'll begin to warm the planet the same way that rising atmospheric CO₂ levels are warming Earth.

Just how much energy would it take?

Impey estimated that thousands of nuclear warheads would do the trick, or one massive impact from an asteroid.

The advantage of an asteroid impact is two-fold: It's radiation-free and we're already designing the technology that could, in theory, achieve such a feat.

Bombing Mars is a bad idea

Even if we could afford to launch thousands of thermonuclear warheads to Mars, we shouldn't, Impey said.

"You [would] sort of Chernobyl-ize the whole planet," Impey told Business Insider while explaining how the after-effects of such a bombing would destroy any hope of colonizing Mars — even if it grew warmer as a result. "A radioactive cloud would quickly disperse all around Mars ... making it hazardous for anyone who went there."

In theory, humans could still live amid the fallout as long as they stayed inside isolated domes, like some of the Mars-like habitats here on Earth.

But over time the radiation would seep into the Martian top soil. This would ultimately destroy any hope of colonizing Mars because the top soil is a critical resource for its use as building material and also for the water it contains, which future colonies could extract.

"You've got water, you've got oxygen, you've got building material, [but] it's all going to be from that top soil," Impey said. "And you just dosed the entire planet with a radiation cloud ... impregnating the top solid, which means anyone who's going to live on Mars in the future would have to drill or dig down just to find uncontaminated material to work with."

Capture an asteroid and aim it at Mars

We already know how to control a rocket strapped with a nuclear explosive, so it's easier to imagine how we might bomb Mars rather than simply shoot an asteroid toward it.

NASA is already working on technology to capture an asteroid, but not for the purpose of warming up Mars.

NASA's Asteroid Redirect Mission will send the first robot in history to a near-Earth asteroid. The robot will then collect a sample from the asteroid and place it in orbit around the moon for astronauts to visit, study, and possibly mine by some time in the 2020s.

And the technology NASA is designing for the ARM mission will pave the way for future manned mission to Mars.

Check out a video about NASA's ARM mission below or on YouTube:

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Spoiler alert if you haven't read "The Martian."

As Elton John once said, it's lonely out in space.

And it's even lonelier being stranded on a planet millions of miles from Earth, without communication, adequate food, or much hope of getting back home. That's the grim prospect Matt Damon's character faces in "The Martian," the upcoming film based on the novel by Andy Weir.

Damon plays NASA astronaut Mark Watney, a botanist on a fictional mission to Mars. Watney gets stranded on the Red Planet when a massive dust storm gravely injures him and forces his crewmates to escape, leaving him for dead. But Watney survives, and faces the daunting task of figuring out how to stay alive on an alien wasteland until he can be rescued.

Watney's technical prowess enables him to tackle the practical problems of getting enough water, oxygen, and food.

But perhaps the greatest hurdle he faces is psychological.

We talked to a NASA psychologist to find out if someone stranded on Mars could really make it without losing his or her mind.

"People have been able to keep it together mentally before" under extreme circumstances, such as being prisoners of war, Al Holland, a senior operational psychologist at NASA, told Business Insider. "We know that humans can be very resilient. One thing humans do very well is adapt."

One thing that's important for staying sane on journeys to space is real-time communication, which helps astronauts feel connected to friends and family. Thankfully for most of today's astronauts — including NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, who's spending a year on the International Space Station — communication is delayed by only a fraction of a second.

But on Mars, there would be a lag of about 20 minutes each way, which means a single exchange would take 40 minutes. In "The Martian," Watney faces the added difficulty of having to communicate with NASA using the camera on an old rover, which NASA can only use by pointing at letters and spelling out words. Talk about frustrating.

In the movie and book, Watney copes with the prospect of almost certain death using humor. At one point in the film when he's figuring out how he's going to survive, he says, "I'm gonna have to science the shit out of this."

A sense of humor is a huge asset for anyone, particularly for an astronaut, because it allows him or her to remain positive. Studies have shown that people use humor to cope with everything from losing their vision to having cancer.

Holland says it's also completely healthy for someone who is completely isolated to start having relationships with inanimate objects (think Wilson the volleyball in the film "Castaway"). As for Watney, he develops a kind of relationship with the camera he uses to log his captivity on Mars.

Keeping focused on actively doing things is also important for avoiding depression like the kind that Mark Watney might have experienced (psychologists call this behavioral activation). For example, people who are kept in solitary confinement will do things like construct a house in their mind, brick by brick, Holland says. In Watney's case, he throws himself into solving each problem that presents itself on Mars, MacGuiver-style.

But when it comes to training astronauts in the real world, NASA prepares them to work in teams, not on their own. "It would be a very rare situation to have somebody left by themselves," says Holland, but "we also plan for the worst-case scenarios."

Although NASA trains its astronauts to deal with solitude, American astronauts still felt isolated when they flew to the Russian space station Mir in the 1990s, according to Holland. The predominant language was Russian, and communication with family on Earth wasn't reliable.

Astronauts have different strategies for keeping busy in space. Some read, some make things, and others focus more on their work. But astronauts going to Mars will likely have to be even more independent, more focused, and more resilient than those of today are.

The Martian premiers on Oct. 2.

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Astronauts, engineers, and fans have praised the "The Martian," a bestselling sci-fi novel, for its scientific accuracy. So if you're making an equally realistic film adaptation, your spacesuits had better look damn good.

That's why Janty Yates, a costume designer for Ridley Scott's movie "The Martian," worked directly with NASA to create spacesuits used in the film.

"Of course we made a film rather than sending people to space," Yates joked to Tech Insider.

The story follows Mark Watney, an astronaut who gets stranded on Mars. Matt Damon (who plays Watney) and other actors in the movie adaptation had to spend a lot of time dressed up in their suits to make the story come to life.

As a result, Yates had to build spacesuits that clearly showed the actors' faces, were comfortable enough to wear during hours of filming (sometimes in the desert), and didn't look like hokey, unbelievable imitations. Real spacesuits are "marvelously practical for space travel, walking and working on Mars," she says, "but they're not practical from a visual sense."

Keep scrolling to see how Yates and others designed two different types of futuristic-looking yet functional spacesuits used in "The Martian," due in theaters October 2.

You'll see two different types of spacesuits in "The Martian." First are these bulky white suits that the actors wear for space travel scenes:

Director Ridley Scott called these ones the "Mr. Dough Boy suits," according to Yates.

Here's the real thing — NASA's external mobility unit spacesuit — for comparison. The costume suits look very similar.

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On Monday, NASA announced a major breakthrough it found flowing on the surface of Mars: liquid saltwater.

This is the first time humans have discovered liquid water on the surface of any planet in the solar system besides Earth, and it is the strongest evidence yet that Mars could support life.

Scientists have suspected for years that liquid water might exist on the surface of Mars, but they had never found direct evidence to support their suspicions.

That changed Monday with a paper that was published in the journal Nature Geosciences.

This groundbreaking discovery not only supports the possibility of current life on Mars, but it is important for potential future manned missions to Mars.

The discovery is "giving us a much better view that Mars has resources that are useful to future travelers," said Jim Green, director of planetary science at NASA Headquarters, during a media briefing on Monday. "The exciting thing is that I think we will send humans in the future ... who will be able to live on the surface and use the resources there."

What's more, water on Mars could "decrease the cost and increase the resilience of human activity on the planet," added Mary Beth Wilhelm, a member of the team announcing the discovery who is at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field.

Liquid water has many uses:

• It can be used for drinking.
• It can be used to produce breathable oxygen.
• It can help make rocket fuel to launch astronauts off the planet and back home.

How to find water on Mars

A team of scientists used instruments on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter satellite to analyze the composition of minerals embedded in dark, deep grooves on the Martian surface around three different regions on Mars.

They discovered that the minerals were a type of salt, perchlorates, and had molecular water in their crystal structure. This suggests that the water is saltwater and not pure.

Here's a GIF showing how these dark grooves change over time, showing evidence of the flow of liquid water:

The scientists think small streams of saltwater flow downhill on the surface of Mars during the warmer summer season, when temperatures can get up to 70 degrees Fahrenheit around the Martian equator.

And as the water flows, it traces these dark grooves in the sand that had been a tantalizing hint of water on Mars.

Now the scientists are positive it's liquid water.

"What that seems to be telling us is that water plays a key role in the formation mechanism of these features," Lujendra Ojha of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta said. Ojha discovered "possible flows of saltwater on Mars" back in 2011, according to The Verge.

The next step

The scientists do not yet know where this water is coming from and how much of it exists.

"Now that we know what we're looking for, we can begin to better search and look and see if there is an aquifer network supplying these, but that is actually the next step," Michael Meyer, the lead scientist for the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters, said during the media briefing.

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If and when astronauts finally set foot on Mars, potentially sometime in the 2030s, they'll be greeted by a dust-covered habitat.

The folks at Foster + Partners want to design it.

The British firm was recently shortlisted among 30 finalists for the 3D Printed Habitat Challenge, organized by America Makes and NASA. Designers and architects were called upon to imagine an environment that could sustain human life on the red planet, despite its harsh and unforgiving climate.

Though Foster + Partners — the design firm behind everything from Masdar City to Apple's under-construction campus — didn't make it to the final round, the firm's design got our attention for its commitment to detail.

Foster + Partners' plan hinges on its Regolith Additive Construction (RAC) process. 

Regolith is the loose, rocky layer that sits above solid bedrock. The task for Foster + Partners was working with that regolith to create a safe living environment.

Xavier de Kestelier, a designer on the project, says the foremost concern was getting the habitat set up without human aid. "In a normal project, you don't really start with that," he tells Tech Insider.

To build on Mars, Kestelier and his team decided to go with three rovers each performing a different task.

The largest that will parachute down are the "Diggers." They move the Martian terrain to form 1.5-meter-deep craters where the habitat will sit.

The medium-sized "Transporters" then push that displaced rocky material over the top of the deflated habitat.

The resultant coating will form a protective barrier from the intense solar radiation and high temperatures on Mars.

Finally, small "Melters" will use microwaves to permanently fuse the loose Martian soil to the habitat. 

"In that way, we can keep the cost down by having each type of robot doing one specific task," Kestelier says. "So it's not like a system you'd find with the Curiosity rover, which does many, many things."

The 1,000-square-foot habitat itself was born out of careful consideration of human psychology and physiology.

Instead of walking normally around the habitat, astronauts will move around in one-third Earth's gravity. Ceilings in the habitat are especially high for that reason, Kestelier says.

Size was a consideration for living quarters as well. They were designed to be small, so that astronauts would be forced to socialize with one another.

"These astronauts are depending on each other, and any communication with Earth takes roughly 20 minutes," Kestelier says. "You want that team to be a really coherent team."

Along with collaborating with climate scientists and explorers, Kestelier says the design team had another source of inspiration to marry beautiful design with rigorous science: Andy Weir's novel and soon-to-be feature film "The Martian."

"That's how we started the project," he laughs. "I bought a copy for the whole team."

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Scientists have confirmed that the dark streaks that seasonally appear and fade away on the surface of Mars are caused by running, salty water, according to new research published today, September 28, in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Scientists have long assumed that Mars holds water, based on things like photographs of river flows on the planet and data from rovers, but we've lacked any direct evidence until now. 

The liquid on Mars can't be pure water. Mars is simply too cold — the average temperature is about minus 67 degrees Fahrenheit. The new research points to data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter that shows the streaks are made of mineral salts that easily absorb liquid. Water is the most likely explanation for their presence. 

In March, NASA announced evidence that Mars used to have a vast ocean back when it was warmer. Most of that water was lost to space, but some is likely still there, frozen at the planet's polar ice caps.

The paper doesn't speculate as to where the water is coming from, or what it might mean for humanity's search for alien life. 

NASA will discuss the findings live on Monday morning. We'll update this post as we get more information.

The best way to watch the announcement live is the NASA TV livestream below, which starts at 11:30 AM EST:

Here are the full details about the announcement, from the NASA press release:

NASA will detail a major science finding from the agency's ongoing exploration of Mars during a news briefing at 8:30 a.m. PDT (11:30 a.m. EDT) on Monday, Sept. 28 at the James Webb Auditorium at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The event will be broadcast live on NASA Television and the agency's website.

News conference participants will be:

-- Jim Green, director of planetary science at NASA Headquarters

-- Michael Meyer, lead scientist for the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters

-- Lujendra Ojha of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta

-- Mary Beth Wilhelm of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California and the Georgia Institute of Technology

-- Alfred McEwen, principal investigator for the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) at the University of Arizona in Tucson

A brief question-and-answer session will take place during the event with reporters on site and by phone. Members of the public also can ask questions during the briefing using #AskNASA.

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Scientists have confirmed that liquid water flows on Mars.

New research suggests the dark streaks that seasonally appear and fade away on the surface of Mars are caused by running, salty water.

"It took multiple spacecrafts over several years to solve this mystery, and now we know there is liquid water on the surface of this cold, desert planet,” Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, said in a press release.

Scientists have long assumed that Mars holds water, based on things like photographs of river flows on the planet and data from rovers, but we've lacked any direct evidence until now. The new research was published today, September 28, in the journal Nature Geoscience.

The dark streaks, some of which reach over 100 meters long, were first noticed in 2010. They're called recurring slope lineae (RSL) and they only appear on slopes near the planet's equator during warm weather, and then fade away when temperatures drop. Now new images and data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show the streaks contain hydrated salts. Scientists already know these salts precipitate out of liquid water.

The data and images don't show the actual liquid water, but the streaks of salt wouldn't be there without some recent influx of water, Mary Beth Wilhelm of NASA's Ames Research Center, said during a press conference.

Mars is extremely cold  — the average temperature is about minus 67 degrees Fahrenheit — but these salts are capable of lowering the freezing point of water enough to where liquid water could flow during Mars' warm season. ( In March, NASA announced evidence that Mars used to have a vast ocean back when it was warmer. Most of that water was lost to space, but some is likely still there, frozen at the planet's polar ice caps.)

"The hydrated salts would lower the freezing point of a liquid brine, just as salt on roads here on Earth causes ice and snow to melt more rapidly," according to the NASA press release.

The paper doesn't speculate as to where the water is coming from though. The next step to figuring that out is to survey more of these streaks at the same high resolution, former NASA astronaut John Grunsfeld said during the press conference.

Some scientists suspect it's likely that microbial life exists under the surface of Mars, and this discovery is more support for that hypothesis. 

"We haven't been able to say whether life exists beyond the Earth, but following the water is a critical element of that," NASA's director of planetary science Jim Green said during the press conference.

Now at least we know the right spots to search for signs of life on Mars, he added. That said, these salty streaks only appear on very steep slopes and rocky terrain, so it will be difficult to investigate them up close. NASA would need to create a specially designed rover capable of navigating the terrain, Grunsfeld said. There's also concerns about possibly contaminating the Martian water with Earth microbes if we sent a rover to collect samples.

We will send humans to Mars in the near future, and this is more evidence that the resources for humans to eventually live on the surface are already there, Grunsfeld said during the press conference.

"It seems that the more we study Mars, the more we learn how life could be supported and where there are resources to support life in the future," Meyer said in the press release.

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NASA has found evidence of liquid water on Mars. This is the first time we have found liquid water on the surface of any planet besides Earth in the solar system. 

Produced by Devan Joseph. Video courtesy of NASA.

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Last week NASA sent out a cryptic press release about solving a "major" mystery on Mars, which it announced Monday at 11:30 a.m. EDT. Beyond that the space agency provided little information.

So what is the "Mars mystery" NASA has solved? Flowing water on the red planet.

This is indeed a major discovery. Where there's water, there may be life. But in this case I wouldn't hold your breath.

NASA hyping this finding is a bit like throwing a party over a patch of wet sand in a desert when — right around the celestial corner — at least two vast, inhabitable oceans remain unexplored.

The "news" we heard Monday dates back to 2011, when an undergraduate named Lujendra Ojha discovered dark streaks on the slope of a crater near the Martian equator.

Back then, Ojha, planetary scientist Alfred McEwen, and other researchers announced in the journal Science that these streaks, called "slope lineae," appeared during warmer periods on Mars. (McEwen also led a 2013 followup study in the journal Nature.) They suggested that water ice in the soil is melting, leaking down the crater wall, and showing up in Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter satellite images.

NASA told the world in August 2011 that "salt water may flow on Mars."

The space agency's big announcement on confirmed this alongside a Sept. 28 study authored by Ojha, McEwen, and others in Nature Geoscience.

Concluding there's water on Mars is a great milestone for studying that planet, but scientists have strongly suspected this for about a decade. It's not worth all of the space agency's hype. NASA didn't even get into the origins of the water, which is the newest and most interesting part of the story.

As it turns out, the recurring streaks probably come from the Martian air. Keith Cowing at NASAWatch.com pointed out that both Ojha and McEwen authored a recent scientific abstract titled "Recurring Slope Lineae on Mars: Atmospheric Origin?" at the 2015 European Planetary Science Congress.

That abstract suggests salts in Martian soil absorb water from the planet's thin atmosphere. It's basically the same process that causes table salt, brown sugar, and other compounds in your cupboard to stick together in humid air. Except on Mars it's blisteringly cold — so the water freezes until it gets warmer, then melts and oozes out as a salty brine.

Something else might supply water for the streaks, perhaps an underground aquifer or a reserve of ice beneath the soil — but right now, atmospheric water is the scientists' best guess. Wherever the water comes from, it's not looking good for life.

"If [recurring slope lineae] form via atmospheric deliquescence, then they are likely eutectic brines with temperatures and water activities too low to support terrestrial life," the new abstract concludes.

This doesn't mean Mars isn't a worthy or interesting target for exploration, robotic or human. Humanity may be able to terraform the planet (with nuclear weapons, according to Elon Musk) and send people there to colonize it. Also, Mars may have been habitable at one point. Many studies showed it had vast, 450-foot-deep oceans covering 19% of the planet.

Until something went wrong. Mars' internal dynamo stopped and killed its magnetic field, shutting down its protective shield against powerful solar radiation. Over the millennia, the Sun blasted away the Martian atmosphere and almost all of its water.

So Mars is most likely a (very) dead planet unless we decide to do something about it.

Given NASA's growing mission to search for signs of alien life in the Solar System, it's high time the US government seriously commit resources to exploring more promising if difficult-to-reach locations, such as Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's moon Enceladus. Scientists suspect both of these worlds hide warm, habitable oceans beneath their icy shells.

If we could orbit or land on one of these ice moons — even send a submersible into the waters below — we stand to quickly advance two of the greatest questions ever posed by humankind: Are we alone? And the follow-up, should we find microbial life: Why haven't we heard from an intelligent alien race?

This year NASA loosely committed to a mission in the 2020s to orbit Europa. That ice moon's subsurface ocean is thought to harbor twice as much water as all of the liquid on Earth.

But the space agency has a bad habit of scaling back and then canceling planned Europa missions while boosting Mars exploration.

For example, NASA killed the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter in 2005. Next, the US space agency pursued a Europa Jupiter System Mission, in partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA), only to back out in 2011. (ESA is still planning that mission as the Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer.) Meanwhile it signed on for another Mars Curiosity Rover-like mission as well as a Phoenix Mars Lander-like probe.

The main hangup for NASA is not brainpower but cash.

Getting to an icy moon is absurdly complex, so mission cost estimates tend to soar to billions of dollars. Mars is more of a known quantity and poses less risk of failure. And with an ever-shifting cast in Congress and the White House, plus year-by-year budgeting, it's easy to completely derail a search for alien life beyond Mars.

This year Congress allocated $100 million for NASA to investigate a new Europa mission. That's a drop in the bucket of NASA's $18 billion budget for 2015 and, as part of that money, its $1.44 billion planetary science program. It's also one-third of the money allocated toward Mars exploration ($305 million).

And over the past decade, overall planetary science funding has declined. At the very least, says The Planetary Society, NASA should get $1.5 billion a year — its historic average — to explore the Solar System. Otherwise, continued exploration of Mars and other places could cannibalize money for exploring Europa.

It's also crucial that the government continue to help NASA increase its dwindling supply of plutonium-238: A rare, unique, and red-hot material that can power spacecraft for decades — and could help a submersible robot melt through a miles-thick ice shell with relative ease.

The problem is that we're running out of plutonium-238. It hasn't been made in earnest since the end of the Cold War, and a $50-million-a-year effort by NASA and the US Department of Energy to reboot production has stalled over and over again, according to Scientific American.

Many years ago, NASA planned to use plutonium-238 to power a robotic mission to Europa. But that plan required more material than the space agency had available. So it abandoned the idea and is looking into a more limited, solar-powered version of the mission.

Jupiter, Saturn, and their moons are very far away, requiring years of space travel to reach. It also takes scientists and engineers many years to design, build, and test the spacecraft they want to send. This means one mission — even a preliminary one to fly by the moon a few dozen times — can take more than a decade to pull off.

A recent feature story about Europa in Popular Science summed up the timeline problem well (emphasis added):

"We understand how special Europa is. It's worth the investment. It's worth the risk," says Louise Prockter, a planetary scientist at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory. Prockter has already made that investment herself, having spent half her career studying Europa’s unique, frosty terrain. "I just hope we can get something there while I'm alive."

If we're ever going to answer "are we alone?" within our lifetimes, let alone those of the scientists most capable of attacking the question, it's time for NASA and the US government to seriously commit to looking somewhere other than Mars. Right now, Europa and Enceladus are our best shots.

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NOW WATCH: NASA released a time-lapse of 11-years of footage filmed on the surface of Mars

Spoilers ahead if you haven't read "The Martian."

In the bestselling sci-fi novel and upcoming movie "The Martian," astronaut and botanist Mark Watney survives on Mars for over a year, largely thanks to his ingenious potato crop.

But is it possible to actually grow food in Martian soil? Yes, and not just potatoes, says Bruce Bugbee, a real-life botanist and NASA scientist.

In "The Martian," Watney grows his own food by planting potato eyes in the ground. He fertilizes the plants with human waste and creates liquid water out of rocket fuel. There's no reason why this wouldn't work, says Bugbee, director of the crop physiology lab at Utah State University, with one critical caveat:

"The book (and probably the movie) suggests that the human waste is put right on the plants," Bugbee told Tech Insider in an email. "This would be microbiologically dangerous and probably toxic to the plants. The waste has to be composted first – usually for several months in a rotating drum."

Jim Green, director of planetary science at NASA and a consultant on the film, said there's probably an easier method than the one used by Watney, played by Matt Damon in the upcoming movie (due out Friday, Oct. 2).

We know that Mars has frozen water and the soil contains nitrate, which is "a great fertilizer," Green told Tech Insider. With so much nitrate, he may have not needed all that "homemade" fertilizer.

Green also noted Watney also could have skipped the dangerous chemical reaction needed to transform rocket fuel into water. Instead, Watney could have figured out a way to extract water from below the surface — now more of a certainty, thanks to recent news of flowing water on Mars— or suck it right out of the air.

In fact, NASA has already grown food in soil designed to mimic what we know so far about the pH and chemical makeup of real Martian dirt. Scientists have successfully grown over a dozen kinds of crops in the simulated grit.

It's worth noting that a typical diet on Earth is the product of around 1,000 crops, Bugbee said. While we can't grow all those on Mars right away, it's a good start.

And crops on Mars would have other uses beyond food. Mars' thin atmosphere has a lot of carbon dioxide, which plants use to store energy from the sun. Plants take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen, so crops could be critical if humans ever attempt to transform Mars into a more hospitable planet — one with a breathable atmosphere.

Maybe something similar to Watney's precious potato crop will get us started.

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NOW WATCH: NASA just announced that 'liquid water has been found on Mars'

A doctoral candidate at the University of Sydney designed an ion thruster — a system that propels spacecraft by expelling ions to create thrust — that destroys the fuel efficiency world record set by NASA's space propulsion system.

NASA ground tested its High Power Electric Propulsion (or HiPEP) ion thruster in 2003 and set the fuel efficiency record of 9,000 seconds (give or take 200 seconds) of specific impulse, which is a measure of thrust or efficiency.

Patrick Neumann, the Australian doctoral student at the University of Sydney, recently smashed that record by creating an ion thruster with a fuel efficiency record of 14,690 seconds (give or take 2,000 seconds), the University of Sydney's student paper the Honi Soit first reported. Even by conservative estimates, Neumann's ion thruster (dubbed the Neumann drive) blows NASA's system out of the water.

NASA's HiPEP was designed for the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter, a spacecraft meant to explore Jupiter's moons, which was canceled in 2005. The main target at the time was to reach Europa, the sixth-closest moon of Jupiter, which could be habitable for life. (The European Space Agency is planning to launch its Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer in 2022, which would get it there by 2033).

The Neumann Drive could be ideal for space travel because of its improved efficiency, making it better for long trips (say, to an icy moon near Jupiter). Neumann himself suggested that his ion thruster could get to "Mars and back on a tank of fuel." 

Unlike the HiPEP, which can only run on xenon gas, the Neumann Drive can run on a variety of metals. This means the system could recycle "space junk" or use discarded metals from satellites and other debris to continue running.

So far, the Neumann Drive runs best on magnesium, but tests have been performed on vanadium, titanium and carbon. It should be able to run on anything that can conduct electricity.

Although the Neumann Drive may be better for the long haul, the HiPEP is better when it comes to acceleration. On his website, Neumann notes that his ion thruster is not good at throwing a lot of power over time, meaning it would be used to keep satellites in their orbit or send probes into space rather than launch a spacecraft.

The Neumann Drive runs based on a reaction between electricity and metal. Electric arcs strike magnesium (or whatever other chosen fuel works) causing ions to spray. A magnetic nozzle focuses the ions to create thrust.

Being fuel efficient is cost effective, Neumann notes on his website. To send a kilo of anything into space, it can cost anywhere between $10,000 to $50,000. An International Space Station (ISS) requires seven tonnes of fuel to keep course in space, bringing that cost up to a minimum of $70 million. "A more efficient engine would require less fuel needing to be brought up — which would result in a dramatic reduction in costs," Neumann writes on his website.

Neumann has lodged a patent and is currently securing funding for the next stage of research and development.

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Future Mars astronauts will have more to contend with than just the unforgiving, vacuumous expanse of space separating Earth from the Red Planet (140 million miles, on average).

In an experiment meant to simulate a journey to Mars, 18 months of isolation caused participants to have high stress levels and low brain activity, according to a study recently published in Physiology and Behavior.

Starting in 2010, six men voluntarily went into a small habitat outside Moscow, Russia for that length of time (one-and-a-half Earth years).

The intention of the study, calledMars500, was for researchers to better understand what can happen to people’s bodies and minds as a result of long periods of isolation. They were especially interested in the brain: “The influences of long-term confinement on the human brain are barely investigated,” the researchers write.

Based on shorter earlier studies, the researchers suspected that exercise would counter the stress and boredom of the isolation.

As part of the study, every 60 days the participants took EEG measurements to record their brain activity and gave saliva samples to indicate their levels of cortisol, a stress hormone. The participants would exercise on special equipment for 30 minutes, taking EEGs before and after.

Though the experiment was conducted a few years ago, the data has just started to trickle out over the past two years.

In this study the researchers found that, over the course of the study, the participants had much less brain activity in the form of alpha and beta waves, which indicate levels of relaxation and conscious, logical function respectively.

The cortisol levels were high for almost the entire isolation period. But after exercise, brain waves increased, and cortisol levels decreased. The researchers conclude that, though the volunteers were stressed and bored in isolation, regular exercise could help.

Over that long a period, though, exercise can’t replace an active and non-monotonous lifestyle. But, interestingly, the participants didn’t have any long-term effects and returned to normal brain function and cortisol levels as soon as their confinement ended; though stress can have many long-lasting effects on the body and mind, it appears that 18 months isn’t long enough to do any permanent damage.

That’s good news for the dozens of aspiring astronauts looking to colonize Mars.

But it also means that they’re going to have a very boring ride over, and that they will have to offset the effects of isolation with exercise, even if they don’t feel like it (earlier studies had reported a loss of motivation to exercise even in shorter timeframes).

For the people planning the missions, it also means that some of the vessel’s limited space will have to be taken up by exercise equipment in order to keep the crew from going completely crazy.

While obviously hard on the participants, the results of the study will help any future astronauts on the order of the fictional Mark Watney stay as mentally healthy as they can on the voyage of a lifetime.

SEE ALSO: This is our best evidence yet that Mars could support life: liquid water on its surface

DON'T MISS: Something profound happens when astronauts see Earth from space for the first time

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NOW WATCH: This Utah desert looks so much like Mars that scientists use it for training

If humans ever reach Mars, we may live in houses made of ice.

On September 27, the architects and designers from Team Space Exploration Architecture (SEArch) and Clouds Architecture Office (Clouds AO) were crowned the winners of NASA's 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge.

Their design, Ice House, relies on the power of water, which we now know exists on the red planet, to create a pressurized and habitable shell where human and plant life can thrive. It features a hydroponic greenhouse, "hollowed-out" ice rooms to give the illusion of space, and a safe area where astronauts can hang out without their suits. The ice shell protects against radiation and won't melt since Mars is about 67 degrees below zero.

"Ice House is born from the imperative to bring light and a connection to the outdoors into the vocabulary of Martian architecture," the designers explain in a project statement.

One of NASA's ongoing goals, says the team, is to adopt a method of exploration in which it "follows the water." Ice House was designed as an extension of that goal.

The team took home $50,000 for the first-place finish.

Up next are the remaining two phases of the competition (the Structural Member Competition and the On-Site Habitat Competition) which opened for registration on September 26. The first event tasks entrants with proving that their technologies to built a Mars habitat are feasible, while the latter puts their theories to the test in real-world builds here on Earth.

The purse for the upcoming competitions is $2.2 million, split between each phase. Winning designs (including the Ice House) will be considered for the space agency's mission to send astronauts to Mars by the 2030s.

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NOW WATCH: NASA just announced that 'liquid water has been found on Mars'

Spoiler alert if you haven't read "The Martian."

Scientists may have just discovered water flowing on the surface of Mars, but it's still a pretty inhospitable place to call home.

Yet that's exactly what Matt Damon's character, a NASA astronaut stranded on the Red Planet, does in the upcoming film "The Martian," based on the best-selling novel by Andy Weir.

NASA's head of planetary science Jim Green was a consultant on the film, which premieres nationwide on Friday October 2. We chatted with Green about just how much science the movie gets right.

"What Andy did is kind of unique in science fiction," Green told Business Insider, referring to Andy Weir, the author of the book. While a lot of sci-fi centers around things that are not possible in our current understanding of science, "Andy decided to write science fiction about a future which would be bounded by the laws we know."

Here's the inside scoop from Green about what's scientifically accurate in the movie:

Mars' biggest challenges

1. It's extremely cold.

The first problem anyone visiting the Red Planet would face is the fact that it is an extremely cold, harsh environment. The temperature swings dramatically, for example, sometimes between as many as 120 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit in a day, said Green.

In the book and film, the main character, astronaut Mark Watney (played by Damon) travels long distances in a solar-powered rover. But he doesn't have enough power to drive the rover and keep it heated, so to keep himself warm, he uses a generator which produces heat from radioactive decay.

Turns out, NASA has a similar generator, only they use theirs to power the real Curiosity rover. The agency also plans to install one of these on the rover it plans to send to Mars in 2020. The excess heat will be used to keep the rover's instruments functioning (but it's risky to use around humans because of the risk of radiation exposure).

2. You can't breathe the air

Next there's the problem of oxygen, the life-giving gas we take for granted on Earth. The atmosphere of Mars is very thin, contains mostly carbon dioxide, and has less than 0.15% oxygen, compared with that of Earth, which has more than 20% oxygen.

In the film, Watney's habitat or "hab" has an oxygenator, a device that sucks in carbon dioxide, zaps it with electricity, and spits out oxygen (for breathing) and carbon monoxide (as waste).

This technology is pretty realistic as well. The International Space Station has an oxygenator that splits water to produce air for the astronauts to breathe. Green said NASA plans to send such an oxygenator to Mars on its 2020 rover as a proof-of-concept that they can convert carbon dioxide into breathable air.

3. There's no food.

Then there's the issue of food, and the fact that Mars doesn't have any crops or livestock.

In the book and film, Watney's mission was only supposed to last 30 days, but because of a rogue dust storm that causes him to be left behind by his crewmates, he must find a way to survive for more than a year. Being a botanist, he figures out he can grow potatoes in the hab by fertilizing Martian soil with his own feces and moistening the soil with water generated by burning hydrazine, a flammable liquid from rocket fuel.

This part differs a bit from reality. As it turns out, Green said, NASA is finding that the soil on Mars is much more moist beneath the surface than once imagined, and contains nitrates and other minerals that nourish plants.​ So Watney may not have needed to go to those lengths to make water and fertilize the soil — he could simply dig up some Martian soil and thaw it out to grow his food.

4. You might get lonely or go crazy

As if the other problems weren't enough, Watney faces the psychological burden of being stranded on a planet millions of miles from home with virtually no human contact. In the film and book, Watney gets by using his sense of humor, by throwing himself into the work of survival, and by focusing intently on problems as they surface, taking things one step at a time.

The stress and isolation Watney faces are not unlike those faced by real spacefarers. NASA astronaut candidates go through a rigorous selection process, which involves thorough psychological evaluations. And outside of NASA, many people have endured extreme isolation (such as prisoners of war) and survived mentally intact.

So overall, how does the scientific accuracy of "The Martian" compare to other sci-fi films? It's the only film Green has worked on, but "it's certainly the most accurate one about Mars," he said.

NEXT UP: 9 tripped-out sci-fi technologies in 'The Martian' that NASA really uses

SEE ALSO: This would be the hardest part of being stranded like Matt Damon in 'The Martian'

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NOW WATCH: Matt Damon is left to die on Mars in first trailer for ‘The Martian’

The sweeping, red-washed desert in Wadi Rum, Jordan, is eerily similar a Martian landscape. Which is exactly why director Ridley Scott filmed many scenes there for his movie "The Martian," due out October 2.

A convincing setting for the film is critical, since Mars is a character unto itself in the survivalist story. The movie follows astronaut Mark Watney (played by Matt Damon) and his struggle to survive after being stranded on the red planet. Wadi Rum makes it look convincing.

But several other places on Earth bare striking similarities to Mars. Scientists are even using some of these places to investigate how, some day, humans might survive on the real planet.

Keep scrolling to see some of the most Martian places on Earth.

Wadi Rum, Jordan is where key Mars scenes for the upcoming movie "The Martian" were filmed.

Here's a picture of a real Martian landscape — Victoria Crater — for reference:

The red dunes and rocks of Wadi Rum look a lot like the real thing.

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With its intense solar radiation and freezing temperatures, Mars isn't exactly paradise.

On Sunday, NASA announced the winning designs for its 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge, a competition to imagine how we could survive in the harsh climate.

Only one team took home the $25,000 prize — for its triangular house built entirely from ice — but the other 29 finalists presented fascinating designs, too. 

Some use autonomous robots to assemble the habitat. Some go deep underground. More than one uses cold fusion.

Few will be able to help humanity reach the red planet by the 2030s— one of NASA's primary goals. But they do highlight how complex it will be for humans to arrive and live there. 

Keep scrolling to see our favorite designs.

Team Rustem Baishev — A large crawling robot called an extruder mines the Martian soil to build a domed, radiation-protected shelter as it goes, forming a spiral to signal infinite growth.

Redworks Habitat — The multi-level underground dwelling was inspired by ancient cultures' use of modular rooms, as in pit houses, to create a system that can adapt to Martian geology.

Team GAMMA — Semi-autonomous robots parachute to Mars and move the terrain to assemble 12-sided structures coated in Martian soil, which works as a barrier from radiation.

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On October 2 you can see actor Matt Damon "science the shit" out of Mars in a movie adaptation of "The Martian," a bestselling sci-fi novel by Andy Weir.

In the movie Damon plays the character Mark Watney, an astronaut who relies on engineering, chemistry, and botany to survive after his crewmates abandon him on Mars.

With so much science at every turn in the film, we think you'll enjoy it more with a little background knowledge. Thus, we've compiled this handy guide of essential Mars science, NASA trivia, and other key details to know before seeing film.

Keep scrolling, and don't worry; we've kept it as spoiler-free as possible.

1. How to get to Mars

The first scene in "The Martian" takes place on Mars, but how would humans even get there?

NASA estimates it would take about six to eight months with space travel technology we have now. In "The Martian," Watney and the rest of the crew use the fictional Hermes spacecraft to reach the red planet.

Hermes is "the most complex and expensive object ever built," astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson says in a promotional video for the film.

On a real trip to Mars, we'll have to worry about the astronauts losing muscle mass and bone density while spending so much time in a microgravity environment. Space is also filled with dangerous cosmic radiation that can rip through a human's very DNA.

The Hermes has artificial gravity and a radiation shield to make the journey more comfortable for the crew. NASA is working on developing both of those things, but it has a long way to go.

2. What it's like on Mars

Here's what Mars is like, according to NASA:

- Mars has a reddish-orange glow during the day from all the dust.

- Sunrises and sunsets appear blue because Mars has almost no atmosphere.

- One day or "sol" on Mars is a few minutes longer than an Earth day.

- One Martian year is nearly two Earth years. That's because Mars orbits the Sun much farther away than Earth, so it takes a lot longer for the red planet to complete one lap.

- The average surface temperature on Mars is a chilly minus-80 degrees Fahrenheit. But temperatures can swing from a low of about minus-195 degrees Fahrenheit in winter, to a comfortable 68 degrees Fahrenheit during the summer.

- Gravity on Mars is only about 40% that of Earth's, so you'd be 60% lighter (but not moon-bouncing light).

- Mars has barely any atmosphere — about 1% of the density of the cozy atmospheric blanket around Earth. That's hardly enough to protect the surface from dangerous space radiation.

- Dust storms can envelope the planet for days at a time.

It's a pretty inhospitable place. Good luck, Watney.

3. Martian dust storms

RAW Embed

Dust storms on Mars happen often, and they can occasionally produce lightning. However, the wind in a real dust storm on Mars looks nothing like the clip from the movie above.

The air on Mars is simply too thin for the wind to do that much damage, Jim Greene, NASA's planetary science director, told The New York Times. Even a scary-sounding 100 mph gust would carry almost no force.

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