Tuesday, November 3, 2009

signs of life in outer space















After the failure of a series of explorations in the early 1960s both by the Soviet Union and the United States, Mariner 4 in July 1965 became the first shuttle across the portrait of Mars and send back to Earth.

Six years later, following the success of the previous flight, NASA's Mars around in November 1971 for the first time with Mariner 9. Orbiter is to map up to 80% of the planet's surface by taking the 7329 pictures.

In the same year, 3 Mars missions of the Soviet Union became a successful mission first landed on the red planet in December 1971. Even so badly damaged the aircraft and then by Martian dust storms, and only had time to send data rakaman for 20 seconds.

Later in the year 1976 Nasa's two Viking missions to Mars that landed safely and menransmisikan more than 50,000 images.

Long after that, the mission of the ESA's Mars Express approaches Mars in December 2003 and still in service today. But the cargo plane, the British-led Beagle II, destroyed in the 2003 Christmas celebration without successfully send back any data.
but now a group of scientists involved in the international team has designed a detailed proposal to bring back examples of mission rocks and if possible, microscopic life from the surface of Mars.

For the success of the mission with a launch plan in the year 2018 until 2023 - and expected to require $ 8 billion fund - will draw experts and funding from both NASA and European Space Agency (European Space Agency), plus a similar agency from another country. "It would be extraordinarily expensive project and no one space agency can afford their own," said Professor Monica Gradi, chairman of the panel of scientists who submitted a proposal like that was launched by the Guardian.co.uk website, 14 July.


He said if the mission is vital if you want to examine the possibility of following the crew's mission to the Red Planet. "If we can not carry the rocks back, then we will not be able to bring back all crew members. The success of bringing back samples from Mars are absolutely necessary if we are to continue the program of Mars exploration," said Monica presented his arguments.

Sending humans to Mars may be impossible things before the year 2050. But if the human manned mission to be realized, scientists and technicians have worked hard to ensure aircraft can land safely on Mars and return to Earth was safe. Indeed there are seven missions ever landing on Mars since the successful shuttle across the Mariner 4 Mars for the first time in 1965. The problem is there is no landing mission that had flown back from the surface of Mars let alone to bring samples to Earth

Mission proposal is the result of 31 research scientists from around the world for eight months. Monica and her colleagues presented the proposal to the delegates at the conference Mars Exploration Working Group International (IMEWG), Paris, earlier this month. The group was formed by delegates from space agencies world countries to plan future exploration missions. NASA's top leadership either mapun ESA have received copies of the proposal and will decide in November whether to fund the mission to the next stage or not. If approved, in accordance with the schedule in the proposal, the development of technology for the mission will begin in 2011.

Professor Colin Pillinger, the Open University - ketidaksuksesan scientists behind the British mission to land the Beagle II Mars - said an example of successful take-home will provide the door for scientists to find further studies of the rocks and to conduct detailed research about the simple life on Mars . "Everyone understood, this should be done if we really want to get to the bottom of Mars," said Collin. But he himself realized to avoid the example of the contamination is extremely difficult.


"There's a big warning sign if we want to play with Mars, planetary protection related cause. We must be extra careful not to bring back something harmful to the Earth," said Collin. "This mission must be guaranteed, absolutely guaranteed to be re-entered Earth's atmosphere without damaging the aircraft itself," he stated

In other sentence if Martian microbes there really must be very tough, given the need to survive in the frozen surface of the planet and dry, and constantly bombarded by ultraviolet radiation. So that when the plane exploded while returning back, scientists could not determine whether life examples will be destroyed or not.

It would be impossible also to find out what they might do to survive on Earth.

Actually the mission to bring samples have been done by robots space and managed to bring home some. But landing mission with distance beyond the end of the month always fail since the first experiment. The Genesis probe, the plane carrying particles from the solar wind, landed destroyed in the Utah desert, the United States in September 2004


While details of the proposal for the details is, the mission will involve the launch of two aircraft from the Earth. One composite lander and one orbiter composite. Both will melakkan trip to Mars, where the lander will touch the surface of the composite. Then let Rover lander that will collect various kinds of rocks, a total of about half a kilogram.

Then the rocks would be brought to the lander, where the rocks plus atmospheric air samples will be packaged in a sealed container in vehicle named mesih rising from Mars-lander part of the composite. The vehicle is then lifted off from the surface of Mars and landed on the orbiter before transferring the precious cargo. Orbiter then will return to Earth, entering the atmosphere and landing. At this point, scientists must move fast and move the extra samples to the laboratory the highest level of biological protection where they will study the possibility of signs of life.

The desire of scientists to bring back samples from Mars is a long fantasy. But this time the support given IMEWG significant progress against the plan. Besides the success of some missions to Mars, including landings by Nasa's Phoenix touches Martian surface regrow confidence researchers. Of course scientists are also aware, if the mission is still needed strong political support both from Europe and the next U.S. president,











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