UAE’S MARS ATLAS TO HELP ASTRONAUTS LAND ON MARS

When Dr. Dimitra Atri, and his team from New York University Abu Dhabi, started working on the Mars Atlas utilizing images from the Emirates Mars mission, the HOPE (Al Amal) probe, it was just the beginning of a journey that will culminate in a more informative book that will be published in both English and Arabic which will also be used by astronauts for landing on Mars. Next on Atri’s list is an Atlas for the UAE’s Asteroid Belt mission and innovative projects with the Lunar Gateway mission.

Introduction

Dimitra Atri is a Research Scientist and leads the Mars Research Group at NYUAD Center for Astrophysics and Space Science along with Prof. K.R. Sreenivasan. He is the Principal Investigator of the ASPIRE Award for Research Excellence grant to study the atmosphere of Mars with the UAE’s HOPE mission. Dr. Atri had always been interested in space since his early childhood. As he states, “I knew very early on I would be studying Astrophysics. I did my PHD in Astrophysics in the United States, and before coming to the UAE my focus was on Astrobiology, which is the study of finding life beyond Earth.”

Dr. Dimitra Atri

New York University Abu Dhabi Group Leader and Research Scientist Center for Astrophysics and Space Science

Although scientists know about planets beyond our solar system, known as Extrasolar planets or Exoplanets, scientists still don’t know if life exists on them or not. The current telescopes are not powerful enough to be able to have a detailed image of them. Hence, Atri noticed that

Mars is just around the corner in our solar system, and at one point it was like Earth, so if we focused on Mars maybe we could understand habitability more.

When he heard the UAE was planning a mission to Mars, he joined New York University Abu Dhabi, and the journey began.

For those who don’t know a lot about Mars, Atri explains that it was very close to Earth in terms of its atmosphere and availability of large bodies of water.

Atri explains, “Ancient Mars would have looked a lot more like Earth of today, than the barren red planet it is today. However, the big question is if there was ever life on Mars?

We are asking how did Mars get transformed from a warm hospitable place to the cold, dry desert world that we see today? Finding answers to these questions about our sibling planet is one of the biggest challenges in planetary science today.”

Why an Atlas of Mars

Exploring Mars is a top priority for space agencies around the globe. This has been going on for the past 50 years.

The UAE is playing its part in uncovering the mysteries of Mars. The Emirates Mars Mission “HOPE,” with its unique orbit and set of instruments, is providing the world with a holistic view of the planet. The mission was commissioned by the UAE’s leadership in 2014, and in a short timeframe, the spacecraft was launched from Japan on July 20, 2020. After a 7-month journey, the HOPE probe entered the Martian orbit on February 9, 2021, and operated for two earth years.

This atlas was created with data from the Hope probe and NASA orbiter, to provide readers with a holistic view of Mars and stunning images of the planet that once looked like ours. The Atlas would show how Mars changes during the day and across seasons through the entirety of the mission.

The Atlas was pieced together from 3,000 images taken by the United Arab Emirates’ HOPE spacecraft, and it shows the red planet in its true light.

Atri explains, “I started my research in New York University, Abu Dhabi in 2018, and the first day data arrived from the Mars probe it was a gold mine for us.”

He and his team were doing a number of projects with the HOPE probe mission to understand Mars better. First the mission wanted to understand whether Mars was inhabitable at some point. Atri comments, “More than four billion years ago when Earth came into existence, Mars was very much like earth. It had a thick atmosphere, moderate temperature, so we can ask if there was life on Mars, which may have originated there, and evolved. In addition, we want to know what happened to the climate of Mars, how it became extremely cold, a desert, why did it lose its atmosphere, why did it lose its water?”

Using data from the HOPE probe and NASA rovers whose names are Curiosity and Perseverance, Atri and his research team used the data sent back and visited onsite areas in the UAE identifying places similar to Mars, trying to connect the two environments as there are similarities between them. Both are arid, and both have saline soil.

Why study Mars?

Today Mars has a thin atmosphere and is very cold, reaching -130 degrees Celsius. The thin atmosphere makes radiation levels from the sun and beyond really high, especially charged particles, making the surface extremely hostile.

Atri states, “In its present form Mars is unlivable, its soil is rich in chemical perchlorates used in explosives. This destroys any organic substance, yet we still see complex organic molecules. How do they exist? Once we can figure this out, maybe we can also look below the surface and find richer organic substances. This will show us how resilient life is, and how it can survive in harsh conditions.”

The magnetic field on Mars was once very active, so it deflected particles from the sun and acted like a shield, much like the magnetic field on Earth. However, because Mars is small it cooled down quickly and so its magnetic field died, the solar energy then gradually eroded the atmosphere of Mars. Atri comments, “We understand this physics reasonably well”.

As for Earth, even though our planet has a strong magnetic field, it does have some level of erosion, but because Earth is so dynamic with earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, the atmosphere is replenished. So, for now Atri says Earth is safe. But maybe in the long-term Earth’s magnetic field will weaken and this will erode atmospheric pressure which is needed to sustain oceans. This could happen billions of years down the road.

This is why scientists want to understand this process, and Mars is the best place to do that.

The Benefits of the UAE Mars Atlas

When the first images from the Mars Hope mission were sent back, Dr. Atri was blown away with the quality of the images. He states in an interview, “I had never seen Mars like this.” While others had sent images of Mars, previous orbiters like NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter generally swooped much closer to the Marian surface, at a specific time of day. But you could never see the whole planet at once.

The Mars Hope mission had global coverage and used a quality camera far superior to any used before.

Due to its unique orbit, EMM (Emirates Mars Mission) observations covered Mars’ global geography and local time every 9 10 - days. EMM enabled studies of the dynamics of the Martian atmosphere.

It utilized three scientific instruments to achieve these objectives: Emirates Exploration Imager (EXI), Emirates

Mars InfraRed Spectrometer (EMIRS), and Emirates Mars Ultraviolet Spectrometer (EMUS). EMM data are publicly available at the EMM Science Data Center. These instruments made it easier to generalize the data at all locations and local times.

The Global Map of Mars, which is a part of the Mars Atlas, is being used today by NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies. It uses it in its Mars 24 software, which maintains precise timings on Mars. JMARS, a publicly available tool used by NASA scientists for mission planning and data analysis, has also incorporated the new map into its database.

Atri explains, “Accurate land maps and local weather data are critical for landing future spacecraft safely. Understanding daily and seasonal weather patterns can help researchers identify the safest time and location to land. In addition, the Atlas also identifies the best locations for landing or even settling.”

Atri clarifies further, “If you want to study different parts of Mars or understand which regions have certain minerals or big boulders or fine dust you can find all that data in the Atlas and even more data in our upcoming version of the Atlas which we are currently working on.”

The Future of UAE’s Mars atlas and more

The Future will be enriching, not only will Atri and his team be publishing a more detailed book for Mars Atlas, but they will be doing that in two languages: English and Arabic. According to Atri, an Arabic language Mars Atlas book will engage more people into astronomy, especially the youth of the Arab world. He states, “This will be the first Atlas of Mars in Arabic. The inspiration came from the rich history of Astronomy in the Arab world. This will also establish the UAE as a pioneer by reinvigorating the same tradition of space science in the region.”

The book should be out by the end of 2024.

In addition to the book, Atri and his colleagues are working on a scientific paper to describe the algorithm they used for consolidating the 3000 images that were gathered from the Hope mission. Atri states, “Given that the images gathered from the Mars mission were taken in bits and pieces and under different seasons, in different distances, it was extremely difficult to combine them and make them into this beautiful and uniform Atlas, so we took a lot of time to develop an algorithm that brought it all together to give this complete view.

As for the future, Atri is already working closely with the UAE government to participate in both the Asteroid Belt mission and Moon mission. He states, “We are figuring out whether we will have sufficient data to make either an Atlas or maps that will benefit both the general public and scientific community.”

The Asteroid Belt mission which will launch in 2028 will transit six asteroids and land on the 7th one in 2033. As for the UAE Moon mission, the Lunar Gateway will orbit the moon and the rover will even land on it.

Built with international and commercial partners, The Lunar Gateway will be humanity’s first space station around the Moon as a vital component of NASA’s deep space exploration plans to the Moon, Mars and beyond. Under a new implementing arrangement, the UAE will provide Gateway’s Crew and Science Airlock module, and a UAE astronaut to fly to the lunar space station on a future Artemis mission.

So far Atri is working with UAE students. The team usually consists of anywhere between 10 15 - undergraduates and as Atri explains, they have already trained many UAE citizens and even hired a government funded scholarship student who will work with the team for three years.

The future of space research in the UAE looks bright, and beautiful just as the Mars Atlas did.

Title of Published Paper:

Business Valuation strategy for new hydroponic farm development a proposal towards sustainable agriculture development in United Arab Emirates

Published in: https://marsatlas.org/

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