Just like an adventure. This is how Mexican astrophysicist Julieta Fierro sees the mission’s recent arrival Persistence to Mars, which has managed to document in real time the landing of the reconnaissance vehicle that will search the red planet for the remains of extinct life millions of years ago.
The Mexican scientist has emphasized that this new NASA mission will reveal some hidden secrets that explain why Mars eventually became a desert planet, when it had features similar to Earth’s about 4,000 million years ago. “Mars was a world with water, atmosphere, maybe life, but something happened to it and it became deserted,” the astronomer said at the conference. On the conquest of Marsorganized by the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
With Persistence There are also technological developments that will allow space to be explored in a different way in the future. “It is the first time that a mission has taken a helicopter to another world to take pictures there to detect which are the most important rocks and bring them to Earth,” the scientist says enthusiastically.
According to Fierro and his colleagues, Drs. Antígona Segura and Luis Franco, it is possible that the extinction of life on Mars was due to dramatic changes in the planet’s greenhouse effect that wiped out the atmosphere. “It’s important to know what happened to Mars because we don’t want the same thing to happen to Earth,” said Dr. Fierro. “Mars in the past had liquid water, active volcanoes, arctic caps with carbon dioxide and water,” explains Antígona Segura, a physician at UNAM’s Institute of Nuclear Sciences.Persistence has captured images of a delta where there was an extinct river, “he added.” The new reconnaissance vehicle can detect organic matter and would allow us to see possible microfossils, ”he explains.
Was there climate change on Mars?
Dr. Segura explains that Mars has experienced a climate change that has affected the planet’s atmosphere. “The greenhouse effect reduced carbon dioxide and stopped warming the planet. It lost water and as the atmosphere was lost, the planet cooled,” says Antígona Segura. “Everything we discover is important because at some point we want to transform Mars. In 300 years it will be a habitable planet,” said Julieta Fierro. “We want to have missions so they can survive there with greenhouses and resources to produce fuel. in situ“adds the doctor.
Thanks to the plutonium-based power source it carries, Persistence You can continue to send images of what you discover for the next 18 years. Julieta Fierro assures that the Martian Delta seen today “is very similar to the Coahuila Desert,” where there was also a river millions of years ago. He also shared his impressions of the crater in which the vehicle landed: “At the edges of this crater are limestones, such as those found in the cliffs of the Earth, produced by marine organizers.”
Dr. Fierro, excited about this new step of humanity, has emphasized the importance of basic science and the need for countries to continue to invest in research despite the pandemic’s most difficult moments. “This time, we accompany this great adventure and we are part of this great achievement and we are able to face these challenges even in the most difficult moments,” he assured.
He also believes that the United Nations should meet again and decide whether the new discoveries belong to one country or all of humanity. “The United Nations needs to rethink whose products the different stars are, it would be a shame to say that the 4,000 extrasolar planets discovered are ours,” reflects Fierro.
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