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A computer illustration by the European Space Agency (ESA) of Beagle 2 lander equipped with a suite of instruments designed to look for evidence of life on Mars.

HUMANS on their tiny planet have found a stellar way to usher in a new year, if not a new era. In recent days, they've successfully probed the planet Mars, a comet, and the galaxies in separate attempts to discover the essential ingredients for organic life beyond Earth.

The Christian Science Monitor in a commentary carried Monday states that like the earliest ocean explorations of centuries past, these latest technological advances relied on lessons learned from earlier mistakes - especially in reaching Mars. They reaffirm a human desire to know how chemical life began, and whether it can have - or ever had - multiple origins in the universe.

Water seekers on Mars: The most spectacular venture was Saturday's landing of the first of two robot-geologists on Mars. The mobile lander Spirit quickly sent back pictures of the Gusev Crater, which is thought by some scientists to be a dry and ancient lake bed with a channel system often associated with liquid water.

Spirit's twin rover, Opportunity, is due to land on Jan. 24 halfway around the planet on another site that has the potential for water. It will search for a type of iron oxide mineral most often found in iron-rich water. Both golf-cart-sized water seekers are the most sophisticated scientific probes ever sent to another planet. They build on the limited successes of the 1976 Viking landing on Mars and the 1997 explorations by the tiny Sojourner robot, and will bring a whole new sophistication to the geological understanding of the planet.

They are expected to explore more than two miles of Mars - snapping photos, grinding surfaces, and analyzing minerals - for at least three months, with the primary aim of looking for hints of past water, or even reservoirs of ice below the surface, that could suggest Mars was warm and wet billions of years ago. More eyes on Mars: The NASA probes represent a quickening pace among space-exploring nations to find out if Mars was ever once habitable by some sort of life. Unfortunately, probes sent by Japan and Europe failed in recent weeks, but NASA's success with Spirit and perhaps Opportunity gives hope that more landers will be sent every 26 months, the interval of time for Earth and the Red Planet to draw closest in their orbits.

NASA may have found the right technique for landing unmanned objects on Mars with a combination of rocket deaccelerators, parachutes, and giant airbags. Catching a comet: Two other recent discoveries are also helping humans understand the possible origins of life. Last week, a NASA mission to the the comet Wild 2 gathered dust and cosmic particles streaming from the comet's nucleus and stored the microscopic material for an expected return to Earth in 2006. These samples could provide answers about basic questions of the origins of the solar system, since comets are relatively pure objects from the system's formation billions of years ago, and whether comets might also distribute key organic materials to planets.

Another recent exploration for life's origin is the first infrared images indicating an abundance of organic compounds in a remote galaxy - a sort of nursery for possible primitive life. In addition, some Australian astronomers have calculated the best places to look for life in the Milky Way, based on the most opportune ages and abundance of life-friendly stars with the right mix of elements.

President Bush may announce a vision for a new American space venture in his State of the Union speech later this month, perhaps to help unify the nation around an adventurous goal, just as John F. Kennedy did in 1960 in ordering a moon landing. The hits and misses of space travel, either manned or unmanned, are often discouraging, but the latest images from Mars and the other recent discoveries are exciting reminders of why the human race can, and must, keep exploring outer space, even if the first simple goal is to find water.

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NASA's Spirit Rover is starting to examine its new surroundings, revealing a vast flatland well suited to the robot's unprecedented mobility and scientific toolkit.

"Spirit has told us that it is healthy," Jennifer Trosper of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., said today. Trosper is Spirit mission manager for operations on Mars' surface. The rover remains perched on its lander platform, and the next nine days or more will be spent preparing for egress, or rolling off, onto the martian surface.

With only two degrees of tilt, with the deck toward the front an average of only about 37 centimeters (15 inches) off the ground, and with apparently no large rocks blocking the way, the lander is in good position for egress. "The egress path we're working toward is straight ahead," Trosper said.

The rover's initial images excited scientists about the prospects of exploring the region after the roll-off.

"My hat is off to the navigation team because they did a fantastic job of getting us right where we wanted to be," said Dr. Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., principal investigator for the science payload. By correlating images taken by Spirit with earlier images from spacecraft orbiting Mars, the mission team has determined that the rover appears to be in a region marked with numerous swaths where dust devils have removed brighter dust and left darker gravel behind.

"This is our new neighborhood," Squyres said. "We hit the sweet spot. We wanted someplace where the wind had cleared off the rocks for us. We've landed in a place that's so thick with dust devil tracks that a lot of the dust has been blown away."

The terrain looks different from any of the sites examined by NASA's three previous successful landers -- the two Vikings in 1976 and Mars Pathfinder in 1987.

"What we're seeing is a section of surface that is remarkably devoid of big boulders, at least in our immediate vicinity, and that's good news because big boulders are something we would have trouble driving over," Squyres said. "We see a rock population that is different from anything we've seen elsewhere on Mars, and it comes out very much in our favor."

Spirit arrived at Mars Jan. 3 (EST and PST; Jan. 4 Universal Time) after a seven month journey. Its task is to spend the next three months exploring for clues in rocks and soil about whether the past environment at this part of Mars was ever watery and suitable to sustain life.

Spirit's twin Mars Exploration Rover, Opportunity, will reach its landing site on the opposite side of Mars on Jan. 25 (EST and Universal Time; Jan. 24 PST) to begin a similar examination of a site on the opposite side of the planet from Gusev Crater.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, manages the Mars Exploration Rover project for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington. Additional information about the project is available from JPL at: http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov 

Earlier Mars Missions List

• (Unnamed), USSR, 10/10/60, Mars flyby, did not reach Earth orbit.
• (Unnamed), USSR, 10/14/60, Mars flyby, did not reach Earth orbit.
• (Unnamed), USSR, 10/24/62, Mars flyby, achieved Earth orbit only.
• Mars 1, USSR, 11/1/62, Mars flyby, radio failed at 65.9 million miles.
• (Unnamed), USSR, 11/4/62, Mars flyby, achieved Earth orbit only.
• Mariner 3, U.S., 11/5/64, Mars flyby, shroud failed to jettison.
• Mariner 4, U.S. 11/28/64, first successful Mars flyby 7/14/65, returned 21 photos.
• Zond 2, USSR, 11/30/64, Mars flyby, passed Mars but radio failed, returned no planetary data.
• Mariner 6, U.S., 2/24/69, Mars flyby 7/31/69, returned 75 photos.
• Mariner 7, U.S., 3/27/69, mars flyby 8/5/69, returned 126 photos.
• Mariner 8, U.S. 5/8/71, Mars orbiter, failed during launch.
• Kosmos 419, USSR, 5/10/71, achieved Earth orbit only.
• Mars 2, USSR, 5/28/71, Mars orbiter/lander, arrived 11/27/71, no useful data, lander burned up because of steep entry.
• Mars 3, USSR, 5/28/71, Mars orbiter/lander, arrived 12/3/71, lander operated on surface for 20 seconds before failing.
• Mariner 9, U.S., 5/30/71, Mars orbiter, in orbit 11/13/71 to 10/27/72, returned 7,329 photos.
• Mars 4, USSR, 7/21/73, failed Mars orbiter, flew past Mars 2/10/74.
• Mars 5, USSR, 7/25//73, Mars orbiter arrived 2/12/74, lasted a few days.
• Mars 6, USSR, 8/5/73, Mars flyby module and lander, arrived 3/12/74, lander failed because of fast impact.
• Mars 7, USSR, 8/9/73, Mars flyby module and lander, arrived 3/12/74, lander missed the planet.
• Viking 1, U.S., 8/20/75, Mars orbiter/lander, orbit 6/19/76-1980, lander 7/20/76-1982.
• Viking 2, U.S., 9/9/75, Mars orbiter/lander, orbit 8/7/76-1987, lander 9/3/76-1980; combined, the Viking orbiters and landers returned 50,000+ photos.
• Phobos 1, USSR, 7/7/88, Mars/Phobos orbiter/lander, lost 8/88 en route to Mars.
• Phobos 2, USSR, 7/21/88, Mars/Phobos orbiter/lander, lost 3/89 near Phobos.
• Mars Observer, U.S. 9/25/92, lost just before Mars arrival 8/21/93.
• Mars Global Surveyor, U.S., 11/7/96, Mars orbiter, arrived 9/12/97, high-detail mapping through 1/00, now conducting second extended mission through fall 2004.
• Mars 96, Russia, 11/16/96, orbiter and landers, launch vehicle failed.
• Mars Pathfinder, U.S. 12/4/96, Mars lander and rover, landed 7/4/97, last transmission 9/27/97.
• Nozomi, Japan, 7/4/98, Mars orbiter, currently in orbit around the Sun; Mars arrival delayed to 12/13/03 because of propulsion problem.
• Mars Climate Orbiter, U.S. 12/11/98, lost upon arrival 9/23/99.
• Mars Polar Lander/Deep Space 2, U.S. 1/3/99, lander and soil probes, lost on arrival 12/3/99.
• Mars Odyssey, U.S. 3/7/01, Mars orbiter, arrived 10/24/01, currently conducting prime mission studying global composition, ground ice, thermal imaging.
• Mars Express/Beagle 2, European Space Agency, 6/2/03, Mars orbiter/lander. The orbiter is functioning but the lander has failed to return a signal.