On Aug. 6, 2012, a new rover will touch down on Mars — bigger, badder and bristling with more gear than a spelunker convention. Although rocking the same suspension system and basic design, Curiosity, aka the “monster truck of science,” is so much heftier than its predecessors that NASA and JPL had to invent an entirely new way to land it: one part HALO jump, one part rocket-hovering sky crane. Its mission: investigate if the right conditions exist, or ever have, to support microbial life.
Some say the world will end in fire; some say ice. Others prefer to trot out obscure scientific theories. Strange as it might seem, the pole shift hypothesis, in which the Earth’s crust and mantle (or outermost layers) move as one piece, did not spring from the fevered imaginations of the sandwich-board set, but from scientific circles, and it’s rooted solidly in physics.
Of course, that doesn’t mean Hollywood got it right …
Although astronomers and cosmologists long believed in the existence of planets outside our solar system, such worlds remained purely theoretical until as recently as the early 1990s. Since then, the ever-quickening pace of discovery has filled the roster of possible and confirmed planetary candidates with first tens, then hundreds and now thousands of distant worlds.
In this article, I’ll take you on a tour through the history of planet hunting and into its future. Along the way, we’ll take a look at some of the most significant discoveries, including the candidates most suitable for life as we know it.