The surface of Mars as photographed by the American rover Curiosity shows a diverse topography and terrain. Meteorite craters dot the surface alongside giant volcanoes, deep canyons, immense valley systems, expanses of sand dunes, and mighty cracks and fissures deep into the planet’s crust.
The Goblin Valley state park in Utah, the United States, has a very similar look to it. There is hardly any vegetation, only rocks and sand. There is no water, and erosion has left boulders that look like mushrooms, or goblins.
The Mars Society has chosen this landscape to create as realistic a simulation of life on Mars as possible. Six students from Louvain’s Catholic University in Belgium are taking part in a scientific project baptised “Mission to Mars”.
They will have to live here for 15 days inside a self-contained station to try and reproduce life under Martian conditions.
“If you look at the relief here the soil earth is rich in iron oxide, it is very red and the area is very h
