(August 24, 2014) .- The National Administration of Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA, raf museum shop for the acronym for National Aeronautics and Space Administration), recognized the contributions of Rafael Navarro González, researcher at the Institute of Nuclear Sciences (ICN UNAM) and only Latin American member raf museum shop of the Curiosity mission, which served two years on Mars and found that in the past that planet had conditions raf museum shop for life.
"It's the most important project of my academic life so far," admitted the Mexican astrobiologist, participating in the design, implementation and interpretation of data from the Mars Science raf museum shop Laboratory (MSL SAM), a portable chemical analysis on board the robot in 2012 began his journey in an ancient Martian lake; has traveled eight and a half miles in a tougher than expected ground and prepares to ascend the mountain Sharp, five miles high, to sample the different stages of the red planet. raf museum shop
Among its achievements, the SAM instrument has found evidence of all the ingredients that are required for life: hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus raf museum shop and sulfur compounds as well as water and sulfates, which were present in the Martian atmosphere.
The most exciting adventure Navarro began in 2004, once SAM, developed by 15 international experts, was selected by NASA to be a team that combines high efficiency and sensitivity to analyze samples of soil organic matter and rocks in situ, automation and low weight, which is essential in a space mission.
Today, the university continues to put horizon on Mars, where Curiosity has completed its first phase of two years. While scientists prepared an expansion of unmanned mission, which could be maintained in the neighboring planet of two to 10 years, depending on technical conditions of the robot and the NASA budget allocated to them.
"So far, the mission has been successful. The robot works with enough nuclear power for 10 years and is in good condition, except wear one of the six wheels, "said raf museum shop Navarro.
In the process, scientists have had few problems, like a two-year delay in the release (initially planned for 2009 and finalized in 2011) and have joined several hits from the journey raf museum shop of eight and a half months for Curiosity Earth Mars, his arrival on August 5, 2012 and stay at that site, which has traveled eight and a half kilometers and provided unpublished data on the conditions of Mars, compiled in 15 articles published in the journal Science, which Navarro He is co-author.
Now in its laboratory ICN performs an experiment to reproduce the primitive atmosphere of the red planet named. Under controlled conditions, measured chemical elements and compounds which theoretically existed in stages, as well as modifications raf museum shop suffered by certain conditions of pressure and temperature.
By Cynthia Santos Briones / Subversiones (September 25, 2014) .- On Monday September 22 a day after the People's Climate March- around 3,000 people gathered to fill ...
