The President of the Astronomical Society in Jeddah described the move to publish a new set of scientific observations collected by the Emirati Hope Probe as arousing the appetite of researchers.
The new set of data on the atmosphere of the red planet in the fourth package sent by the Hope probe is a hearty scientific meal aimed at understanding the past and present climate of Mars.
Engineer Majed Abu Zahra, president of the association, told Al-Ain News that understanding the atmosphere and climate on Mars, provided by the data of the Hope probe, is very important and will eventually lead to the search for signs of life.
Abu Zahra explained that the probe’s data will support the efforts of the Emirates Space Agency to create computer models of the activity of the Martian atmosphere, which will enable researchers to study the climate of the Red Planet in the past and present.
He pointed out that these models take into account a number of factors such as dust particles suspended in the air and how they absorb and release energy, seasonal cycles involving carbon dioxide and the role of water ice clouds, where these three important components interact in the Martian atmosphere (dust, carbon dioxide and water). To help determine its climate, it will help create computer models to simulate and study how conditions in Mars’ climate vary across seasons and from year to year.
“This will lead UAE Space Agency researchers to understand today’s climate, how it has changed over time, and what the climate of ancient Mars might have looked like.”
Abu Zahra pointed out that there are reasons to believe that ancient Mars was much warmer and wetter, including geological features that we know form when water flows on the surface for too long, and this may mean that conditions were once favorable for life.
He said the new Hope Probe data package will certainly help reveal how the atmosphere of ancient Mars was much thicker and richer in greenhouse gases, and might explain this, or at least give a glimpse.
“By helping to determine the climatic conditions prevailing in the ancient past, this will help the Emirates Mars Exploration Team, other scientists in assessing the possibility of life on Mars, and when and where to look for evidence of this,” he explained.
He added that the Hope probe’s studies of Mars’ climate cycles today, will help the various space agencies in planning missions to send spacecraft and one day the humans, who will try to answer these big questions for all of us.