NASA returns to the red planet. This time it will do it with technologies it never used, and for the first time it will be broadcast in Spanish. The voice that will guide the Spanish-speaking audience will be that of Caleña aerospace engineer Diana Trujillo.
“The universe is a pretty big place. If we were alone in it, it would be a big waste of space ”. That is one of the most famous expressions of Carl Sagan, the American astronomer and science popular who inspired thousands of people around the world with his television program Cosmos.
Sagan not only motivated astronomers, astrophysicists or space engineers, but he was also the driving force behind the creativity of many filmmakers who brought stories of space travel and life on other planets to the big screen.
Although they seem distant worlds, those of science and that of the fantasy that art allows us to, institutions such as NASA are working on projects that bring these two worlds closer together.
Such is the case with the Rover Perseverance, which left planet Earth for Mars on July 30 last year, with the intention of fulfilling the dream of scientists and artists: to find life on the red planet.
The mission that will place the rover on the neighboring planet is called Mars 2020, and a crucial phase of its development will take place this Thursday, February 18. Perseverance will dock at the surface and begin its exploration with high-tech equipment that NASA had not used from previous voyages.
Seven tools for reconnaissance and sample collection, including a removable helicopter from the vehicle, will be some of the innovations the Rover will have for its investigations.
Additionally, Mars 2020 Perseverance has more cameras than any interplanetary mission in history, and the remote-controlled vehicle will dock in an area called Jezero Crater. The reason they chose this space is because about 3.5 billion years ago it was a river delta with cliffs, sand dunes and rocky fields that could have retained organic molecules and other possible signs of microbial life.
If that speculation is true, this mission would be the first to prove that life exists on other planets. In addition, the Rover will attempt to obtain important data about the geology and climate of Mars that could help scientists understand why, if the red planet and Earth showed similarities at one point in time, they ended up being so different.
While this journey is expected to resolve many doubts, the landing that will take place next Thursday and the reconnaissance that will take place as a result are only the first leg of a journey expected to take place for the first time in history. a return.
Perseverance collects pieces of rock cores and places them in sample tubes to store them in a landfill, where a new trip prepared by the US space agency will collect them so that they can be studied on Earth.
While NASA is optimistic about the landing results, it is important to keep in mind that only 50% of the attempts to descend on the surface of the neighboring planet, made by all of the world’s space agencies, have been successful and that the possibility is alive, that Perseverance does not reach its goal.