Astro Nerds Astronomy Magazine (June 2014) Issue 1 | Page 10

10 11 of Mars, astronomy, space news, and space exploration. planetary candidates. With these discoveries it is more important than ever If you are interested in a presentation by a member of to explore and settle Mars. Some may say Mars is a frozen wasteland with the Education Task Force ([email protected]) or a robots slowly churning through a dusty and rocky landscape. However, member of the Speakers Bureau, please contact us (info@ we like to think of Mars as the new frontier of raw desert. She is waiting, marssociety.org ). To learn more about The Mars Society wonting, patiently orbiting her parent star while we decide when to step or for volunteer opportunities, please visit our main page foot on her precious soil. The time is now. (http://www.marssociety.org/ ) or contact us ([email protected] ) for more information. The character of the human race will be measured by whether or not we have taken responsibility for our own future. We must build our character by responding to what is happening around us. What is happening is; we are outgrowing the Earth. It takes a worldwide community of “Martians” to collaborate and reach the goal set forth by Dr. Robert Zubrin in the late 1990’s. The goal is to send humans to Mars. We wish to accomplish this by pooling our resources as a worldwide community. On April 17, 2014, NASA announced that the Top Image: Mars Sunset- NASA Middle: Mars Landscape- NASA JPL Below: Youth Rover Bottom Right: URC2 Kepler Space Telescope (KST) has discovered the first Earth-sized planet in the habitable zone of its parent star. Although this planet is 500 light years away, it only begs the question, “When will we find an Earth-sized exoplanet within reach of a generation of explorers?” The answer is most likely within the next decade. The KST has confirmed 966 extrasolar planets with another 3,845 Astro Nerds June 2014 Astro Nerds June 2014