NASA recognizes work of UNAM researcher on mission to Mars – Terra Mexico

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August 19, 2014 • 18:59

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The robot Curiosity on the surface of Mars

Photo: Getty Images / NASA

The NASA recognized the contributions of Rafael Navarro González, researcher at the Institute of Nuclear Sciences (ICN) of UNAM and unique Latin American member of the Curiosity mission, who served two years on Mars and found that in the past that planet had conditions for life.

Recognition fared delivered at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of NASA and is signed by Charles F. Bolden jr., Administrator of NASA in Washington, DC

“is the most important project of my academic life so far, “said Mexican astrobiologist, participating in the design, implementation and interpretation of data from the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL SAM), a portable chemical analysis on board the robot began its journey in 2012 by ancient Martian lake; has traveled eight and a half miles in a harder ground than expected and prepares to ascend the mountain Sharp, five miles high, to sample the different stages of the red planet.

Among its achievements, the SAM instrument has found evidence of all the ingredients that are required for life: hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur compounds as well as water and sulfates, which were present in the environment Martian.

Rafael Navarro González, researcher at the Institute of Nuclear Sciences, UNAM

Photo: UNAM

The most exciting adventure Navarro began in 2004, once SAM, developed by 15 international experts, was selected by NASA to be a equipment 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 horizon of the university continues to put 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.