VATICAN CITY — As Perseverance, the latest probe on Mars, gears
up to send to Earth high-definition images, video and audio of its
surroundings, one papal astronomer said he hoped the fresh new discoveries will
inspire future explorers.
With advanced degrees in physics, philosophy and theology, Jesuit
Brother Robert Macke said, "What really inspired me to come into this
field was growing up with the results that were coming out of the spacecraft
missions, like Voyager, and all the photographs that nobody had ever seen
before" of Saturn and its moons and other objects in the solar system.
Born in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1974, Brother Macke said he only
"dabbled a little" in enjoying science fiction, influenced by his
father's interest in the genre, and he credits it with inspiring him to think
of new ideas.
But it was the reality of scientific discoveries that made him
say, "Wow, these are real places that you can really explore and
photograph and study," he said Feb. 19 in a call from the Vatican
Observatory in Castel Gandolfo near Rome.
"Seeing the results and the images that come out of missions
like Perseverance, I hope these will be an inspiration to the next generation
of young scientists," he said.
The popular imagination has come a long way since early
speculations about little green men and artificial canals of some ancient
civilization once populating the red planet.
When the Mariner 4 probe flew by Mars in 1965 and took the very
first pictures of another planet ever seen, "it saw a dry, desolate
planet," said the Jesuit brother, who is the curator of the Vatican's
meteorite collection.
"It became apparent that what we had imagined through our
telescope was not the actual case, that Mars is a very different place, a very
dead world," he said.
But that did not deter science from going back again and again
for decades, certain that Mars holds a lot of clues for the quest for
extraterrestrial life and planetary formation.
The many different Mars missions have led scientists to look for
other clues and signs, like possible evidence of minute microbial life — past
or present — or something completely unlike anything found on Earth.
"The atmosphere doesn't have signs of the source of
chemistry that would reflect current living organisms doing their ordinary
biology," he said, so "maybe in the past, maybe back when Mars was
wetter, when the atmosphere was thicker, perhaps back then maybe it might have
supported life. And so that's what we want to look for."
The Perseverance will be able to drill under the Martian surface
and store sample cores in tubes for possible future study. It also has ground
penetrating radar that should help understand the structure underneath the
surface, and it will drive along what had been a lake full of water, because,
Brother Macke said, "when we're looking for life, you follow the
water."
"The more we know about Mars, the more we can direct our
focus in the search for life," he said, adding that "Mars is the
nearest and easiest and biggest laboratory for us to search for life."
Brother Macke said the Vatican meteorite collection has about
half a dozen specimens from Mars, including samples from the important
Chassigny meteorite, which fell in France in 1815, and "Nakhla,"
which fell in Egypt in 1911, and was held by Popes Benedict XVI and Francis.
Brother Macke said he and a researcher in Houston are using data
from Martian meteorites and comparing it with data from different Mars orbiters
"to better understand and characterize the surface and immediate
subsurface of Mars."
The race to Mars has intensified with two other successful
missions reaching their destinations in February: an orbiting craft sent by the
United Arab Emirates, and a probe set to land by China.
While those missions may have geopolitical overtones for some,
for scientists — the more the better, he said.
"In the sciences, and planetary science in particular, we
are an international community, and we have quite a tradition of collaborating
amongst ourselves quite a bit," he said.
"As far as I know, the data coming from these missions will
be shared with scientists around the world," the Jesuit said. "That
is part of this scientific community is not one that is really bound by
geopolitical borders."
"That's one of the marvelous things about
science, it's really an international collaboration of the whole world. You
know, the world benefits when we learn more through our science," he said