Image credit: Roger Tanner/Jack Kennedy/NOAO/AURA/NSF; (no larger image available)

Missions to Mars

To the naked eye, Mars is a red point of light, but a telescope reveals it to be a disk. An amateur astronomer captured this image in the Advanced Observing Program at Kitt Peak Visitors Center. For images of Mars' polar ice caps and surface channels, see this Hyperphysics page.

(This feature was updated on July 19, 2013.)

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Miller-Urey Experiment

Try your hand at the origin of life (one possible step of it, anyway) with Miller-Urey Experiment, an interactive simulation of how life first formed in the primordial ooze on Earth. You choose the chemicals that go in, and then you see if what comes out is part of a protein molecule. To learn more, visit The Miller-Urey Experiment.

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image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona; image source; larger image

Phoenix Mars Mission

This image was captured by the Phoenix Mars Lander, which arrived there on May 25, 2008 to search for water, other necessities of life, and evidence of past life. To learn about this mission visit Phoenix Mars Mission.  Also, see Water on Mars and this interview with NASA planetary scientist Christopher McKay on the possibility of life on Mars.

From Soup to Cells - The Origin of Life

See From Soup to Cells - The Origin of Life to learn about the many different kinds of evidence for the processes that produce life on Earth. For more, visit the NOVA site How Did Life Begin?.