As Perseverance, Mars’ newest probe, prepares to send high-definition, video and audio images of its surroundings to Earth, one papal astronaut said he hoped the new discoveries would encourage cargo future research.
With advanced levels in physics, philosophy and theology, Jesuit Brother Robert Macke said, “What inspired me to enter this field was to grow up with the results that were to come. -out of the spaceship missions, like Voyager, and all the pictures that no one had ever seen before “of Saturn and its moon and other objects in the solar system.
Born in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1974, Brother Macke told the Catholic News Service that he was only “throwing a little” at enjoying science fiction, influenced by his father’s interest. in the genre, and he believes it by inspiring him to think of new ideas.
But the truth of the scientific discovery led him to say, “Wow, these are real places you can study and photograph,” he said on Feb. 19 in a call from the Vatican Observatory in Castel Gandolfo near Rome.
“Seeing the results and images that come out of missions like Sustainability, I hope these will inspire the next generation of young scientists,” he said.
The popular imagination has come a long way since the early exploitation of small green men and artificial canals of some ancient civilizations when they lived on the red planet.
When a Mariner 4 probe flew with Mars in 1965 and took the first pictures of another planet ever seen, “he saw a dry, dry planet,” said the brother of the Jesuit, who is the custodian of a meteorite Vatican.
“It turned out that what we had thought through our telescope was not the real issue, that Mars is a very different place, a very dead world,” he said.
But that hasn’t stopped science from going back and forth for decades, surely Mars has a lot of things in mind for the pursuit of extraterrestrial life and planetary creation.
Many different missions on Mars have led scientists to look for clues and other signs, as possible evidence of the life of minute microbes – yesterday or today – or something completely different. like anything found on Earth.
“The atmosphere has no traces of a chemical source that would reveal conventional organisms doing their normal biology,” he said, so “maybe in the past, maybe back when Mars was wetter, when the feeling was thicker, maybe back then maybe it had supported life. So that’s what we want to look at. “
The durability will be able to drill under Martian surface and store sample resources in tubs for future study. It also has a deep radar that should help to understand the structure below the surface, and it drives across a lake that was full of water, because, Brother Macke said, “when we look for life, you follow the water. “
“The more we know about Mars, the more we can direct our focus in finding life,” he said, adding that “Mars is the closest and easiest laboratory and the more we find for life. “
Brother Macke said that there are about half a dozen samples from Mars in the Vatican meteorite collection, including samples from the important Chassigny meteorite, which fell in France in 1815, and “Nakhla,” which fell in the Egypt in 1911, and held by Popes Benedict XVI and Francis.
Brother Macke said he and a researcher in Houston are using data from Martian meteorites and comparing it with data from different Mars orbiters “to better understand and identify the surface and subsurface of Mars.”
The race to Mars has intensified with two more successful missions reaching their destinations in February: an orbiting craft sent by the United Arab Emirates, and a probe landed by China.
While some of these missions may have geopolitical overtones, for scientists – it’s the best, he said.
“In the sciences, and planetary science in particular, we are an international community, and we have a rich tradition of co-operation among ourselves to a large extent,” he said.
“As far as I know, the data coming from these missions will be shared with scientists around the world,” said Jesuits. “That’s part of the community. this science is not very much tied to geopolitical boundaries. “
“That’s one of the amazing things about science, it’s really an international collaboration of the whole world. You know, the world benefits when we learn more. through our science, “he said.