SOCHI, July 21. /TASS/. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said on Friday he hoped that the joint Russian-European project to land a probe on the Red Planet would crown with success.
"We are planning to take part together with European colleagues in the exploration of Mars. By the way, we are already taking part," the Russian leader said, answering children’s questions during the program "A Serious Talk With Vladimir Putin."
The Russian president was asked about whether there were plans to colonize the Red Planet.
The Europeans tried to land a probe on Mars with Russia’s participation recently but this effort failed, Putin said.
"Now, I don’t remember quite exactly, I believe in 2020, we are planning together with them to make another attempt but this time we’ll be making the landing probe and I hope that we’ll do this well and we’ll succeed in this effort," the Russian leader said.
Putin called Mars a marvelous and very interesting planet and shared actual scientific data on this object with children.
Specifically, Mars once had its atmosphere, which it has now actually lost due to various reasons, the president said.
"To all appearance, there were oceans there, which now also do not exist." "But the latest research has shown that there is methane in the thin atmosphere of Mars. However, methane does not stay for long… It quickly disappears and if it has been found in the Martian atmosphere today, this means that some processes like rotting, some boggy processes are taking place. This suggests that apparently water has been preserved in some state, most likely, under the surface and something is taking place under the surface," the Russian president told children.
The study of this phenomenon is very important to understand the processes taking place in the solar system, including on the Earth, Putin said.
Putin said that the study of Venus was no less interesting as this planet, on the contrary, had a verse dense atmosphere.
According to the president, actually what is called the greenhouse effect and "what we are so afraid of" is occurring there.
"It has already happened on Venus, this greenhouse effect. It is true, though, that it has occurred due to objective large-scale events in the solar system rather than due to human activity but this has happened and it is very important and interesting to understand what processes are taking place there," the Russian president said.