Establishing whether the planet Mars has ever supported life is one of the great unanswered questions of modern science.
Open University (OU) academics are addressing this through their involvement in the European Space Agency’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter which will blast off from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, for a seven month journey to Mars, arriving in October.
The ExoMars Orbiter is carrying an array of instruments with significant British involvement which will hunt for methane gas emissions, which could signal the presence of life-forms in Mars’ past.
OU academic, Dr Manish Patel in the OU’s Space Science research priority area is co-Principal Investigator for the NOMAD (Nadir and Occultation for MArs Discovery) instrument on board the probe.
NOMAD consists of three spectrometers, two infrared and one ultraviolet, to perform high-sensitivity orbital identification of atmospheric components, including methane and many other species.
“Methane is very interesting for us as it may give us a clue as to whether there has been life on Mars,” said Dr Patel.
Dr Patel and his team worked specifically on UVIS, a miniature ultraviolet spectrometer whose main objective is to detect and quantify trace gas concentrations but also to study aerosols present in the Martian atmosphere. The main absorbing trace gas in the wavelength range of UVIS is ozone
“UVIS weighs 950 grammes and will gather information about ozone dust,” said Dr Patel. “It can also have applications for measuring the ozone on Earth.”
Principal Investigator on NOMAD is the Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy; the other co-Principal Investigators are: Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, Spain and Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, Italy.
The Trace Gas Orbiter also carries a lander to investigate the surface of Mars, and will be sending back unprecedented data during its atmospheric entry and descent phase. Dr Stephen Lewis, Senior Lecturer at The OU, is the co-Principal investigator on the team that will receive this initial data returned by the lander.
“Mars is a difficult world to land on, and Europe has very little experience in settling probes safely on its surface,” said Dr Lewis. “The information from the lander could be crucial in telling us what to expect when it comes to landing future missions.”
The OU has just launched an MSc in Space Science and Technology designed for those with an academic or professional interest in space science and the technology that underpins this discipline.