NASA honors Algerian parks with Martian namesakes

The Manila Times

NASA honors Algerian parks with Martian namesakes  NASA's mapping of Mars now bears the names of three iconic Algerian national parks, Algerian physicist Noureddine Melikechi, a member of the US space agency's largest Mars probe mission, tells AFP. The Tassili n'Ajjer, Ghoufi and Djurdjura national parks have found their Martian namesakes after a proposition by Melikechi, which he sought as both a tribute to his native Algeria and a call to protect Earth.  AFP VIDEO   Subscribe to The Manila Times Channel - https://tmt.ph/YTSubscribe   Visit our website at https://www.manilatimes.net   Follow us:  Facebook - https://tmt.ph/facebook  Instagram - https://tmt.ph/instagram  Twitter - https://tmt.ph/twitter  DailyMotion - https://tmt.ph/dailymotion   Subscribe to our Digital Edition - https://tmt.ph/digital   Check out our Podcasts:  Spotify - https://tmt.ph/spotify  Apple Podcasts - https://tmt.ph/applepodcasts  Amazon Music - https://tmt.ph/amazonmusic  Deezer: https://tmt.ph/deezer  Tune In: https://tmt.ph/tunein  #TheManilaTimes #worldnews  #mars

Transcript

00:00Here we go.

00:07It's the bird of National Park.

00:13This is in the old mountains and you can see people living there at that time.

00:17The balconies of the roofing.

00:19We call them balcon. The balcon is balconies, so.

00:22And there's some life still there.

00:28When you go and see them, you just feel like, wow.

00:31Look at this.

00:35This is the largest open-air museum in the world.

00:51Yeah.

00:56What people used to do is truly amazing.

01:00Even today I can't draw like this.

01:05There we go.

01:07And Kathy, she's here.

01:09You don't have to mention her name, but I don't know if she likes it.

01:13You can see that there's quadrants.

01:18These are the various quadrants here.

01:21There you go.

01:23These are the different quadrants on Mars.

01:26I don't know what they're called in English again.

01:29It's where people believe water is coming.

01:31But it says, you know, there's sandy green and so forth.

01:34And again, there's the map of Jezero crater.

01:37So this is the Jezero crater itself.

01:39And the mapping has happened just around here.

01:41Just around this.

01:43I can't remember whether it's the north, south or east.

01:45If you look at pictures of the Tassili-Niger, you will see that it's at least visually,

01:51it looks like the Mars planet because it has a lot of red sand.

01:56It has a structure a little bit like Mars planet.

02:00So every time I see pictures from Mars, it reminds me of Tassili-Niger.

02:05And now every time I see Tassili-Niger, it reminds me of Mars.

02:11So for me, there is something there that is very attractive.

02:14And it's like, for me, it's a no-brainer.

02:16That was the first one.

02:18And the second one, if you look at the pictures, also looks at some areas of Mars

02:21and the resilience of the planets to various things that happen over time.

02:27And the third one, Geodrise, also has something that, for me,

02:32sometimes reminds me of the richness of various natural habitats,

02:40either on this planet or somewhere else.

02:42So those are where the three came from.

02:44And these three national parks have people who have lived for a long time.

02:47And it's almost like, number one, a thank you for taking care of these

02:51because, you know, the planet is fragile.

02:54And it's a signal to the world that we really need to take care of our national parks,

02:59either in Algeria or somewhere else.

03:01But every national park is a treasure that we as humans have inherited,

03:05and we need to make sure that it is preserved,

03:08and we make sure that we can pass it to the next generation safely

03:11and in good shape and so forth.

03:14In terms of how it feels, so Tassili Neger is a desert, sand desert.

03:20So it's really hot during the day, but it's quite high in altitude.

03:25It gets really cold at night.

03:27So that's how we describe it and how you feel.

03:30But as I said, you feel a sense of there is nothing around you,

03:33and yet there is life around you, right?

03:36You can go and see cave paintings that's very, very old, thousands of years old.

03:44And those cave paintings are a signature, it's like a book again,

03:48of how people used to live, what life was about there.

03:51You see animals, you see a lot of things.

03:54So including one cave painting where it looks like there is somebody

03:57who came from somewhere else, maybe Mars.

04:00So there is one like that too.

04:01And Durjura is slightly different because during winter it's green,

04:04it has snow, it has all of these things,

04:08and at the same time during the summer it's a different story.

04:12But for me it dances with nature, it dances with what we do.

04:17So it's beautiful, it's rather much beautiful.

04:20Some meetings, and the people who work on a daily basis if you want, on mapping,

04:27ask to divide the region around where the rover is

04:30because that's the region that's going to be studied scientifically.

04:33So if the rover has landed in point A, maybe a region of about,

04:37let's say 10, 15 kilometers around, right, and divide it into small quadrants.

04:42And each of those quadrants then we are asked to,

04:45not specifically this quadrant, this quadrant, this quadrant,

04:47but you propose names.

04:49And as you propose names, to name those quadrants,

04:53then there's a team of scientists who actually look at those names,

04:56look at those quadrants, and make sure or they select or they do their job

05:01and you end up with named quadrants.

05:26NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

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