Katie’s Little Black Hole

By Katie Ramanayaka, Year 13

Hello Everyone! I am Katie Ramanayaka, a self-proclaimed philosopher, theorist, one of the best luminaries you will ever know, and I would like to welcome you to my little black hole. In brief, I would call myself a science fanatic -Science has fed and continues to feed my curiosity- it is not a subject that could ever stop. As our understanding of life and the universe deepens, we realize that there is even more that we don't understand. That unlimited potential is simply astonishing. In this column, I will be pulling you out of this world and will be showing you the many fascinating parts of the universe that you may not have known existed!

Emirates Mars Mission

We, humans, are curious creatures. We always yearn to learn more

about the world and the universe. Yet could never be satisfied with what we know. Curiosity is ingrained in us- allowing us to learn as babies and survive as adults. The sense of craving to know and understand what goes on in our universe has, undoubtedly, been the driving power behind our development as people and success as a species. Within the last century, we have seen exploration like no other. We've introduced the use of genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, robotics, and automation into our daily lives. Space Exploration and research have evolved just as rapidly as every other sector, if not even faster. Nations remain competing contenders in the race to discover what lays beyond what the eye meets. What are the far unseen mysteries the universe holds and, what more do we have to learn about our cosmos? Many unanswered questions were slowly being answered as space research advanced in the latter half of the 20th century. We witnessed the propulsion of rockets into space, moon landings, the launching of satellites, and the release of a space station. We have learned a lot in the last century, but we still have many more questions to answer.

Impressive strides in the space arena

The UAE has also commenced its journey in space research, joining the international space mission.

In the short span of a decade, the UAE has undergone immense unparalleled innovation in the space division. UAE's very own space agencies: The United Arab Emirates Space Agency and the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre, have been very active since its formation in 2014 and launched uncountable programs- feeding to the limitless accomplishments of the UAE.

Eyes set on the Red Planet

One of the latest missions started by the Space Agency is the Emirates Mars Mission. The inauguration of the Mission took place on the 19th of July 2020 which, was also when the agency launched the Hope Orbiter Space Probe.

The Hope Orbiter Space Probe is the first mission to Mars launched by the UAE. Though it has been over 60 years since the first Mars exploration program, we still only have a limited amount of information about the Red Planet. The Hope Space Probe aims to study the weather conditions and the weather dynamics in the Martian atmosphere.

The probe makes use of various instruments that can measure different relevant information- a digital camera, an infrared spectrometer, and an ultraviolet spectrometer. A digital camera is used to capture high-resolution coloured images, an infrared spectrometer is used to examine the temperature profile and an ultraviolet spectrometer is used to study the upper atmosphere of the planet.

After the Hope Probe was launched, it arrived on Mars on the 9th of February 2021 and fired its thrusters, where it self-launched itself into Mars's orbit. It is now spinning around the planet's equator preparing for a transition to an acceptable Science Orbit for its primary science operations. The space agency acquires multitudinous objectives that they believe the Hope Probe will be able to execute with the devices that were installed into the orbiter. All the instruments fixed into the probe will give us key information on the gas composition and the atmosphere of the Martian planet. With the information that the probe gathers, astronomists believe that different evaluations of the Martian atmosphere can be made. It'll be able to explain how the weather changes the escape of Hydrogen and Oxygen by correlating the lower atmosphere conditions with the upper atmosphere- which is the principal purpose of the probe. This knowledge will give astronomers the complete picture of the red planet and the layers of the planet.

It could be difficult to understand why such a large project was conducted to understand something that may seem quite insignificant, but this knowledge could give us the answers for questions we've had for a long time. From the information gathered by the probe we might just be getting closer to knowing if expansion of human civilization is truly possible to other planets. It may answer questions like – with the atmospheric conditions on Mars, what resources would be required to create a city for humans to be able to live in? Is Mars habitable to us humans or will the human civilization theory on the Red Planet remain fictitious? It may even give us a peak on the presence of extraterrestrial life on other planets.

According to a paper published in the journal "Nature Astronomy", Sara Seager, a Canadian American Astronomer and planetary scientist, had noticed in laboratory investigations that microbes can survive and thrive in atmospheres that are dominated by high levels of hydrogen, which is an environment greatly opposed to the Earth's nitrogen and oxygen rich atmosphere. But that is exactly where we might be going wrong in the search for extra-terrestrial life. Astronomers had narrowed down planets and environments rich in the sources that are required by humans and other organisms living on Earth when there could be other conditions that other forms of life could be accustomed to. This has also led many different questioning planetary scientists to believe that we may already have encountered alien organism, but we may just have failed to recognize them as actual life. Understanding the loss of major components like Hydrogen and oxygen may lead us closer to answering whether alien life truly exists? And if we've been ignoring something that's been right under our noses.

But again, we have got a long way to go to answer these stupefying questions- it may take just about decades, centuries, and even millenniums but as innovation in space research grows, so does our development. “1000 years back, the flight of a rocket seemed like a miracle, so it shouldn't be hard to believe that in another 1000 years that humans would've colonized other planets in our solar system and could have discovered alien life. For all we know, in 1000 years we could be allied with another dominant specie in our universe. But the larger the advancements, the bigger the progress.”