CGTN Europe spoke to Francisco Diego, Lecturer at the Dept of Physics and Astronomy at University College London
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00:00Let's talk some more about this now with Francisco Diego, who's from the Department of Physics and Astronomy at University College London.
00:06Welcome back to the program, Francisco.
00:08So, we know that we can still call it the Red Planet, but not necessarily for the reason we thought we could.
00:14How significant is this discovery?
00:17Well, I have to clarify, because the Red Planet, we knew for decades, really, that it was a rusty planet,
00:26and there was iron oxide on the surface.
00:28And then we have several missions in orbit and also on the ground that have confirmed all this.
00:36So, the discovery now is that, instead of being like, for example, some of the rovers, NASA rovers,
00:45found hematite, which is a kind of iron oxide.
00:48It's just iron oxide itself.
00:50They found these spherules, lovely pictures actually, about the size of a marble,
00:55which they would call the, what do they call it, the blue, like a fruit or something.
01:03And that was hematite.
01:04It's just pure iron oxide.
01:06Now, what they have discovered now, there's a refinement on that, is hydrated iron oxide.
01:12Hydrated iron oxide ferrite hydride, which is different, because it has water involved in the molecule.
01:21And that implies that this reaction, this combination of water with this iron oxide,
01:28happened much earlier in the development of Mars, I mean billions of years ago,
01:33when we have evidence, plenty of evidence, that Mars has liquid water on the surface before.
01:39There is evidence of erosion.
01:42There is evidence in the layers that we have seen from the, especially Curiosity and Perseverance rovers from NASA.
01:51And, well, the point is that, yes, it did have conditions for life.
01:57And we are now expecting these samples that the Perseverance rover are leaving samples of the ground,
02:05the excavated ground, leaving samples there in capsules to be recovered by future missions
02:11to bring them back to the Earth and find out more evidence about life on Mars.
02:16It is also very exciting.
02:18Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you.
02:19I wanted to talk about those possible future missions.
02:21How does what we found out already inform what they will be looking for next time?
02:26And what would you be most excited to discover?
02:31Well, evidence for life, really.
02:34Or conditions for life.
02:39All these discoveries come from infrared spectroscopy that is being done from orbit and in the ground as well
02:46to detect the evidence of these hydrated molecules.
02:50So that brings more evidence for a past in the Martian history that had liquid water on the surface.
03:00I have to say that Mars is not all red.
03:03Half of Mars, the north part of Mars is red.
03:06It's like kind of a desert with fine sand.
03:09And the south hemisphere, it's this hard.
03:12It doesn't have this red color.
03:14It's darker.
03:15And there is this discrepancy, what we call the crust dichotomy of Mars,
03:20where the oceans probably all the liquid water was in what we see, what will be the seabeds,
03:26which is where the dust is.
03:29And the high grounds, because the darker area is much higher,
03:33that's when all the craters are and the big mountains are in the bottom.
03:36That was not in Mercury.
03:38So we are now in a very special times to find out more about the possibilities of life on Mars.
03:47I'm completely convinced as soon as we have astronauts walking on Mars,
03:51they will recover samples of microbacteria, fossilized bacteria on Mars.
03:58I'm convinced that they will have primitive life on Mars, but only that.
04:02Wow, exciting stuff.
04:03Francisco, great to talk to you as always.
04:04Thank you for joining us.
04:05That's Francisco Diego from University College London.