Metal flakes on Mars
Human explorationMarsIt has been almost 20 years. From the launch of various detectors to the field inspection of Mars rovers, we have almost seen the bottom of the local face of Mars.
Desolation, wind and sand, magnificent scenery and fiery red scenes, this is undoubtedly the best place for space art fantasy.
Early exploration has initially confirmed that there is currently no sign of civilization on Mars, and humans are the "extraterrestrial civilization".
However, NASA did find a lot of suspected human garbage on it. A piece of thin metal once again aroused people's curiosity to explore life on Mars.
Metal sheets suspected to be human garbage
Could this be alien life? Considering the similarity between Mars and the Earth, many astronomy enthusiasts suddenly focused their attention on Mars.
At present, no evidence of past or present life has been found on Mars.
Previous cumulative discoveries have shown that during the ancient Noachian period of Mars, liquid water existed on the surface of Mars, which may be suitable for microbial habitation, but this does not mean that life will definitely exist.
Early Mars activities (picture from NASA)
The reason why scientists are full of interest in Mars is that its potential is really great.
Modern science emphasizes the importance of water, so the search for Mars focuses on chemicals in surface soil and rocks.
Because Mars was similar to the Earth in its early days, Mars has something special in terms of the origin of life .
Curiosity, Opportunity , Perseverance , NASA 's three pioneers have successively gone to Mars to search for evidence of life.
These include the historical biosphere based on autotrophic, chemotrophic and autotrophic microorganisms, as well as ancient water flow environments.
In June 2018, NASA announced that it had detected seasonal changes in methane levels on Mars, which means that methane can be produced by microorganisms or geological processes.
The European side has also begun to conduct atmospheric methane mapping on the data provided by NASA. Originally, the European and American space agencies were planning to cooperate with the entire Mars rover to find out. As a result, Franklin was postponed indefinitely due to the Russia-Ukraine incident.
Fortunately, Perseverance successfully landed on Mars in 2020, and stored many drilling samples in related missions.
So far, NASA has reported the latest status of life forms that may be detected on Venus and Mars.
So what does this sudden appearance of a thin piece of metal mean?
"Gifts" from the Earth
Students with rich imagination may say that this may be an echo from the past, the final result of extraterrestrial civilization , the remains of civilization on Mars. In fact,
did not wait for the majority of netizens to use their imagination, NASA itself recognized , this thing is its own.
NASA compared the images returned by Perseverance and found that this metal sheet should be a space blanket, which may be an item that fell from the jet power unit when Perseverance landed. .
Perseverance's activity probe
Mars rover will enter what industry insiders call " seven minutes of terror" when it lands . This is the key to the landing process. If the angle of the rover and related controls are not controlled well, Mars will The car may crash as a result.
The key, but the terrifying 7 minutes
At that time, the staff used special sewing machines and tools to piece together this space blanket , and was eventually used to help regulate the temperature during the descent and landing of the Mars rover.
It seems that this is " troops have not been moved, food and grass are going to first", but what exactly is this space blanket?
As early as 1964, NASA selected this material in its own space program. Its main material is polyester film made of phthalic acid and ethylene glycol ester.
The film has high tensile strength , and has excellent chemical and dimensional stability . In addition, it is also excellent in transparency, reflectivity , gas and odor barrier properties, and has better electrical insulation .
Students who often watch movies must be familiar with this kind of thing. Having a bonfire in the ice and snow, and wrapping yourself in a space blanket can withstand the impact of low temperatures.
Because the surface of the material contains metal coating reflector , it will show a golden or silver appearance. At the same time, it can also reflect radiant heat of 97% .
The three-layer structure of the space blanket
Generally speaking, the environment in space is harsher, so polyimide will be used in material selection.
The space blanket synthesized by polyimide can resist the low temperature of space and the high temperature of the planet environment. Its use range is around -260℃~480℃.
In addition, this material is also very suitable for use in vacuum. The lunar module in the Apollo program used this aluminized polyimide space blanket with a thickness of only 120 microns.
Compared with the golden appearance of ordinary space blankets, polyimide aluminum-plated will present a more advanced amber . Of course, the cost will also increase accordingly.
Powerful space blanket
In terms of production, the production process of the space blanket is not complicated, but it requires a very high-precision manufacturing process. Roughly speaking, the space blanket is made by vaporizing a very precise amount of pure aluminum and vacuum depositing it onto a very thin and durable film substrate.
Thanks to the development brought about by aviation technology, space blankets now have a very wide range of uses .
Space blankets are used in first aid, sports competitions, and military activities. For first aid, space blankets can effectively prevent and respond to hypothermia.
Various space blankets exhibited by NASA. The sealing foil of the space blanket can reduce air convection and at the same time reduce heat loss caused by sweat evaporation, while the reflective surface can inhibit damage caused by thermal radiation.
In addition, the space blanket can be transformed into other usable items with simple DIY.
In order to successfully send the Perseverance to Mars, NASA used a lot of space blankets.
In order to ensure that the rocket's jet power brings stability to Perseverance, the space blanket can also ensure that these scientific instruments will not be affected.
Considering that Perseverance will first put down various instruments and objects during the landing process , including a heat shield, a supersonic parachute and a rocket-powered crane .
The crane can ensure that the Mars rover is lowered to the ground stably, so NASA speculates that this piece of metal foil should come from the debris that was blown away during the landing process..
In addition, there will be powerful sandstorms on Mars. It is not surprising that the space blanket fragments were blown to other places and were eventually discovered.
It seems that the final result of the matter has a reasonable explanation of . Ironically, although humans have not yet landed on Mars, humans have already begun to create garbage on Mars.
Go to Mars to collect garbage?
In the past, people always said that Mars is the second home of mankind, how it is similar to the earth, and how humans can transform Mars.
eventually developed a base on Mars and eventually survived on Mars.
However, scientists have never given up the exploration of Mars. At least until the arrival of interstellar navigation, this is our only remaining hope.
Currently Mars methane may be a breakthrough point. Methane is very unstable in the oxidation structure of Mars.
Changes in methane previously observed by Curiosity
Due to the chemical reactions caused by the sun's ultraviolet radiation and other gases, methane will rapidly decompose, so the continued presence of methane in the atmosphere means there is a supplementary source.
From 2003 to 2018, the NASA Space Flight Center team conducted comparative analyzes of methane on Mars many times, and finally determined that there were seasonal changes in methane on Mars..
Potential sources of Mars methane
Currently, scientists have added non-biological processes as possible sources of Mars methane.
Most of the time, we think of methane as a change caused by microbial activity.
Now scientists have summarized the possible water-rock reaction, radiolysis of water and pyrite formation into methane sources .
Because these processes will produce hydrogen , the final Fischer-Tropsch synthesis of carbon monoxide will produce methane and other hydrocarbon compounds, including carbon dioxide .
Faced with the relatively harsh environment of Mars, scientists have been simulating the Martian environment since the 1950s to find a way suitable for the survival of life on earth, and at the same time test the survivability of life.
Perhaps this is life on Mars in the future
It can be seen that the investigation of Mars is becoming more and more abundant, and many studies have made people rethink the possibility of survival on Mars.
Perhaps human survival on Mars will not be a problem in the future, but now we may have to prepare for Mars’ garbage disposal .
