In an earlier version of this story, we had stated that Mars was 34 billion miles away, when in actuality, it's only 34 million miles away. We have since fixed this error and apologize for the mistake.
When it comes to interplanetary destinations in our solar system beyond Earth, there isn’t a lot of great options when it comes to weather, conditions, or even simply solid ground. Our near neighbor Venus is so hot we’d burn up before getting anywhere near solid ground. Pluto and breaks the thermometer in the opposite direction with temperatures as cold as -400 degrees Fahrenheit. Meanwhile, Neptune, Uranus, Saturn and Jupiter are mostly made up of toxic gases that would kill us even if they did have solid ground to walk on. And that’s without even mentioning the storms.
Mars is really the only planet that sits within the habitable orbit around our sun. After more than a half century, humans have walked on the moon and delivered spacecraft that has flown to Pluto and even left the edges of our solar system. We’ve even landed several spacecraft on Mars, including the NASA Perseverance rover and China’s Zhurong rover currently moving around the planet and beaming back photos and other valuable information as we speak.
