Spell It: 4 top destinations in Mars to explore as a space tourist

Forget Europe or the Caribbean. As humanity gets closer to colonising Mars, it might be time to plan which destinations you’d like to explore if you ever get a chance to visit the red planet.

Click start to play today’s Spell It, where we leave our ‘blue’ planet for a short while, to visit its neighbour.

Mars is full of contrasts, from massive volcanoes to giant craters and deep canyons. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk published an ambitious plan in 2016, in the journal New Space, where he described how he wants to establish a city of a million people on Mars by 2050.

Whether this is feasible or not, remains to be seen. Still, it’s worth discovering what the planet has to offer, and browse through potential tourist attractions for future Martians.

Here are a few worth noting:

1. Olympus Mons

It’s the most extreme volcano in the solar system, measuring about the same size as the entire state of Arizona in the US, according to American space agency National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa). Located in the Tharsis region of Mars, it’s about 25km high – that’s close to three times the height of Mount Everest on Earth. Despite being so massive, the mountain is likely easy for explorers to climb, since its average slope is only at about five per cent.

2. Valles Marineris

Mars isn’t just home to the largest volcano in the solar system, it’s also home to the largest canyon. Valles Marineris is about 3,000km long, according to Nasa – about four times longer than the Grand Canyon in the US. While scientists are still unclear on how Valles Marineris formed, they think lava moving through the Tharsis region pushed the crust upwards, creating fractures in some regions. These fractures became Valles Marineris.

3. Medusae Fossae

Medusae Fossae is perhaps one of the more bizarre locations on Mars, with some speculating it even holds evidence of a UFO crash. Those in the scientific community, however, think it’s more likely that the area is home to a massive volcanic deposit. With time, winds have sculpted the rocks into beautiful, otherworldly formations.

4. Gale Crater

In 2012, the Curiosity rover stumbled upon this region, which was found to have extensive evidence of past water. Complex organic molecules were found in the region, on several different occasions, inside 3.5-billion-year-old rocks. There has also been evidence of methane concentrations in the atmosphere – an element that is produced by microbes, as well as geological phenomena, so it could indicate a sign of life.

Would you visit Mars if you had the opportunity? Play today’s Spell It and tell us at games@gulfnews.com.