Europe and Russia have launched a spacecraft to look for possible signs of life on Mars, a historic mission that can be a game changer in flying Humans to the red planet.
Exo-Mars 2016 blasted off from the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan on Monday. Mission controllers began receiving a signal from the spacecraft about 11 hours after launch. The rocket carries the Trace Gas Orbiter and a lander into space, which is capable of both moving across the planet's surface and drilling into the ground to collect and analyze samples. The Exo-Mars will mainly hunt for methane in the Martian atmosphere. Scientists wonder if Methane has been generated by geological or biological processes on Mars.