14 DAY TRIAL // Caves beneath the surface of Mars are among the most promising places for conducting surveys in search of extraterrestrial life that may have existed there in the past. Searching them would go a lot easier if astronomers could use swarms of robots for the job, analysts say.
The most important thing to keep in mind when thinking about the Red Planet is that it had early conditions very similar to those on Earth, and that it also featured a liquid surface ocean.
This means that, at least for a short period of time, the emergence and development of life may have been possible there as well. What experts are looking for are remnants of such lifeforms, and potentially even living descendants.
But investigating Martian caves is not easy, and the engineering challenges of maneuvering a rover on another planet into such landscape features are for now beyond our technological capabilities.
But creating swarms of robots is not, experts say. Inexpensive and disposable probes, capable of communicating among themselves, could be exactly what we need in this endeavor, they add.
“Something interesting is going on down there. We just need to find it,” explains University of Southampton engineer Áron Kisdi. He is referring to the methane that has been discovered in the Martian atmosphere, and whose source is still unknown.
If the greenhouse gas is produced by living things, such as bacterial populations, then it would make sense why its concentrations are constantly replenished, when they should already be exhausted.
Kisdi believes that numerous small robots could be programmed to search in a grid pattern, in the same manner bees use to look for flowers and nectar. The approach would ensure a minimal search time, and a larger search area than other methods.
The British expert detailed his approach in the March 3 issue of the journal Acta Astronautica. “We have sent robots to Mars a few times now. But we’ve only seen a small fraction of the planet,” he says,
According to Kisdi, a machine called Jollbot may be the best alternative. A spacecraft similar to the NASA Phoenix Mars Lander could release 40 to 60 such explorers, which would then scatter around the landing site looking for caves.
As soon as such a cave is detected via changes in ambient temperature the machine returns to the lander on the shortest route, and informs it and the other robots about the finding. An autonomous decision is then made to investigate a site further, this time focusing all Jollbots.
“And if you lose a robot the search isn’t over,” the expert adds. But there are also challenges to be faced by such a mission, experts in-the-know say, quoted by Wired.
“The hard thing about exploring Mars is providing power to robots on the surface,” explains NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Mars program science manager David Beaty.
“The surface area of Mars is equal to the surface area of Earth’s continents. Traveling between one cave and another might be a distance of hundreds of miles,” he explains.
But Kisdi says that such obstacles can be managed in due time. “I’d like to start developing the hardware next. I plan to keep working on the idea until the next call for proposals on Mars missions,” he says.