Small Highland village playing big role in Mars space mission
A CORNER of Wester Ross is playing a significant role in a European Space Agency (ESA) mission to land a robotic rover on Mars.
International scientists are visiting the banks of Lower Diabaig by Loch Torridon as a part of their ExoMars mission, as explored in BBC’s Landward programme.
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Speaking to Landward, Dr Claire Cousins of the University of St Andrews explained how this was ESA’s first attempt to land a robotic rover on the surface of Mars. She said that they had a goal of understanding the ancient environments that were on Mars about four billion years ago, and to explore their geology.
“[We also want to explore] whether this was somewhere that life could have flourished or whether it could have sort of just been preserved in the rock record,” said Dr Cousins. “And this is what we really want to try and find out.
“So, the reason why we’re here is because the rocks here are actually really great test beds for the types of technology that we’re going to be sending in this robotic rover. Before we send any of this technology to Mars, we of course want to put it through its paces. We find places on Earth that share lots of similar geology to what we want to explore of Mars.”
The rare geology of Wester Ross’ Lower Diabaig makes it one of only a few locations in the world suitable for ExoMars testing. The Mars rover will be landing on an area of the red planet that has never been explored before, putting Dr Cousins and the team at the forefront of the search for extraterrestrial life, a Landward presenter explained.
The rover is named after British chemist Rosalind Franklin, who was a pioneer in understanding the molecular structures of DNA RNA, viruses, coal and graphite.
Glenelg, which is around 25 miles south of Lower Diabaig, is twinned with Glenelg on Mars since October 2012. This occurred after NASA’s rover named Curiosity was designated to explore the area on Mars named Glenelg.
