How is making Mars' soil hostile to life "important" and "vital"?

The definition of "vital" is "absolutely necessary or important; essential" and "indispensable to the continuance of life"

Vital is from the Latin vita – "life"

I think improper working is being bandied about here.

"I've always wondered. How do they actually find elements on other planets and stars without physical experiment.

I'm not much of an expert. Pls forgive me for this silly question."

Chem Monkey Says:
May 15th, 2008 at 12:07 pm

Cyber Dudezz,
The extremely short answer would be "spectroscopy."

Its not a silly question.

The slightly less-short answer is -

Basically we can detect and identify these chemicals through a process called spectroscopy – the study of the light emitted by the elements or molecules.

The basic principle is thus:

All elements have their own atomic structure, where structure here refers to the particular ways in which electrons are configured within the atom. An atom, in simple terms, is made up of a small positively charged nucleus and a cloud of electrons whizzing around it in 'energy layers'. Electrons can often jump between these layers, and in the process either absorb or emit light – this is where light comes from.

The thing is, the wavelength of the light emitted (the colour of the light!) is completely determined by the energy levels that the electron jumps between to emit the light. In any given atom, there are a fairly large number of different energy levels that electrons can jump between, so the atoms emit light at a number of different and very specific wavelengths.

Whats more – each different type of atom (element) has its own unique energy level structure, and so the combination of different wavelengths of light it emits (it's 'spectrum') is unique to that element – it is basically a 'fingerprint' for the atom in question.

Most light doesn't appear this way to the eye (ie to be composed of different colours) because it all blends in together, but using a technique called spectroscopy, we can separate the light out and see what different colours or wavelengths are present. When we do this, we can see the chemical 'fingerprints' for different atoms present in the separated spectrum, and hence deduce that the light must have been emitted by a particular type of element or molecule.

My explanation is most probably lousy, by try looking 'spectroscopy' up on wikipedia for a better explanation.

I'm not much of an expert. Pls forgive me for this silly question.