September 11th 1997 was the day that the Mars Global Surveyor finally arrived at Mars after a 300-day journey. After being launched in November 1996, it had travelled an approximate 750 million kilometres to get to Mars! This was not a short mission though, Mars is quite a trip away it seems. On September 11th 1997 the Surveyor began orbit insertion, however it lost contact with NASA years later and in April 2007 they released the Preliminary Report of the potential causes for the disruption.But the MGS was not a hopeless case! Whilst exploring Mars, the Surveyor collected images of a newly found gully deposit, which suggests that water still flows on Mars...which could mean there is life on Mars after all?! If Mars has water resources, there is potential for life and growth, which opens a whole other universe of questions and theories for scientists to battle out against each other. A tremendously significant day for the whole of humankind and planet Earth. What do you think?
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