Yet another question about Mars!?

Question

Robotic Landers landing on Mars use parachutes in order to slow them down before reaching the surface of Mars. With the air pressure being so low is it air or something else that makes using the parachutes effective?

Also can parachutes be used to land on any other body in Solar System except Earth and Mars?

Answer 1

Even though the air density is a lot less, the parachute will still provide some braking. Sufficiently? Well, you may need much larger parachutes or some additional braking (or shock absorbing features like air bags).

Venus, Jupiter and any of the gas giants (except that one cannot really 'land' on anything) and Titan.

Answer 2

Actually they also have impactors.

For your second question, I can only say of course. The solar system is made of the sun and asteroids and planets. Planets are classified into terrestrial planets(inner planets) and gas giants(outer planets). In the gas giants(Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune), parachutes could work well better than they do on earth. But for Jupiter, there can be second thoughts. Its atmosphere is so acidic that most earth materials will burn in it.

And just for your information, although the gas giants are the biggest in the solar system, its their atmosphere is the big one(almost 5-100 times more than the amount ofrock in the planets)

Answer 3

1)although the air pressure on mars is low like you say the atmosphere is not 80% oxygen 10% nitrogen and 10% carbon dioxide like on earth in stead it has a different combo of gasses of which i do not know.
2)yes parachutes can be used on any known galactic body as long as the parachute size and the gasses on the body are in the same size differencial ranges (the denser the gas the smaller the parachute has to be and vise versa

Answer 4

You cannot determine with any precision the landing location when using a parachute. It can leave you hundreds and possibly thousands of miles off course when entering from orbit! Unless you don't really care where it finally lands! Typical nasa approach to getting something on the surface!