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The best part about my summer was relaxing and playing video games.

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The best part about my summer was relaxing and playing video games.

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I'm most excited about learning from home this year!

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I'm most excited about learning from home this year!

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This is an interesting article about going to Mars.

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This is an interesting article about going to Mars.

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Mars has captivated humans since we first set eyes on it as a star-like object in the night sky. Early on, its reddish hue set the planet apart from its shimmering siblings, each compelling in its own way, but none other tracing a ruddy arc through Earth's heavens. Then, in the late 1800s, telescopes first revealed a surface full of intriguing features-patterns and landforms that scientists at first wrongly ascribed to a bustling Martian civilization. Now, we know there are no artificial constructions on Mars. But we've also learned that, until 3.5 billion years ago, the dry, toxic planet we see today might have once been as habitable as Earth.

Since the 1960s, humans have set out to discover what Mars can teach us about how planets grow and evolve, and whether it has ever hosted alien life. So far, only uncrewed spacecraft have made the trip to the red planet, but that could soon change. NASA is hoping to land the first humans on Mars by the 2030s-and several new missions are launching before then to push exploration forward. Here's a look at why these journeys are so important-and what humans have learned about Mars through decades of exploration.

Why explore Mars

Over the last century, everything we've learned about Mars suggests that the planet was once quite capable of hosting ecosystems-and that it might still be an incubator for microbial life today.

Despite its smaller size, the planet's land area is also roughly equivalent to the surface area of Earth's continents-meaning that, at least in theory, Mars has the same amount of habitable real estate. Unfortunately, the planet is now wrapped in a thin carbon dioxide atmosphere and cannot support earthly life-forms. Methane gas also periodically appears in the atmosphere of this desiccated world, and the soil contains compounds that would be toxic to life as we know it. Although water does exist on Mars, it's locked into the planet's icy polar caps and buried, perhaps in abundance, beneath the Martian surface.

Somewhere during Martian evolution, the planet went through a dramatic transformation, and a world that was once rather Earthlike became the dusty, dry husk we see today. The question now is, what happened? Where did those liquids go, and what happened to the Martian atmosphere?

Exploring Mars helps scientists learn about momentous shifts in climate that can fundamentally alter planets. It also lets us look for biosignatures, signs that might reveal whether life was abundant in the planet's past-and if it still exists on Mars today. And, the more we learn about Mars, the better equipped we'll be to try to make a living there, someday in the future.

Past missions, major discoveries

Since the 1960s, humans have sent dozens of spacecraft to study Mars. Early missions were flybys, with spacecraft furiously snapping photos as they zoomed past. Later, probes pulled into orbit around Mars; more recently, landers and rovers have touched down on the surface.

Early highlights of Mars missions include NASA's Mariner 4 spacecraft, which swung by Mars in July 1965 and captured the first close-up images of this foreign world. In 1971, the Soviet space program sent the first spacecraft into Martian orbit. Called Mars 3, it returned roughly eight months of observations about the planet's topography, atmosphere, weather, and geology. The mission also sent a lander to the surface, but it returned data for only about 20 seconds before going quiet.

In 1976, NASA's Viking 1 and 2 became the first spacecraft to successfully operate on the planet's surface, returning photos until 1982. They also conducted biological experiments on Martian soil that were designed to uncover signs of life in space-but their results were inconclusive, and scientists still disagree over how to interpret the data.

Now, two NASA spacecraft are active on the Martian surface: InSight is probing the planet's interior and it has already revealed that " marsquakes" routinely rattle its surface. The Curiosity rover, launched in 2012, is also still wheeling around in Gale Crater, taking otherworldly selfies, and studying the rocks and sediments deposited in the crater's ancient lakebed.

Future of Mars exploration

Once every 26 months, Earth and Mars are aligned in a way that minimizes travel times and expense, enabling spacecraft to make the interplanetary journey in roughly half a year. Earth's space agencies tend to launch probes during these conjunctions, the most recent of which happens in the summer of 2020. Three countries are sending spacecraft to Mars during this window: The United Arab Emirates, which launched its Hope spacecraft on July 20 and will orbit Mars to study its atmosphere and weather patterns; China, which launched its Tianwen-1 on July 23, and the United States, currently targeting July 30 for the launch of its Perseverance rover.

Perseverance is a large, six-wheeled rover equipped with a suite of sophisticated instruments. Its target is Jezero Crater, site of an ancient river delta, and a likely location for ancient life-forms to have thrived. Once on the surface, Perseverance will study Martian climate and weather, test technologies that could help humans survive on Mars, and collect samples from dozens of rocks that will eventually be brought to Earth. Among its goals is helping to determine whether Mars was-or is-inhabited, making it a true life-finding Mars mission.

Private spaceflight companies such as SpaceX are also getting into the Mars game. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has repeatedly said that humanity must become " a multiplanetary species" if we are to survive, and he is working on a plan that could see a million people living on Mars before the end of this century.

Soon, in one way or another, humanity may finally know whether our neighboring planet ever hosted life-and whether there's a future for our species on another world.

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Why we explore Mars-and what decades of missions have revealed

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Mars has captivated humans since we first set eyes on it as a star-like object in the night sky. Early on, its reddish hue set the planet apart from its shimmering siblings, each compelling in its own way, but none other tracing a ruddy arc through Earth's heavens.

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This is from my favorite video game, Castle Crashers. I like playing video games when I'm NOT in school.

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This is from my favorite video game, Castle Crashers. I like playing video games when I'm NOT in school.