The New York University of Abu Dhabi will contribute its progress to the important initiative of the Gulf country in the Red Planet

The planned Emirates City on Mars will receive support from NYUAD radiation research

photo_camera PHOTO/WAM - Emirates Mars

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) will have the latest radiation discoveries from the New York University of Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) for its remarkable project aimed at establishing a first human settlement on Mars by 2117.

Scientific sources told the Emirate news agency WAM that the new scientific discovery from the New York University of Abu Dhabi will serve UAE interests for this historic goal.  "Radiation is one of the biggest obstacles in the planning of long-term space missions, especially the project to establish a human presence on Mars [the UAE's Mars 2117 project]," said Dr Dimitra Atri, a research scientist at the Space Science Center at NYUAD, who has made important findings from his research into the impact of radiation on the health of astronauts on long-term space missions. Her team has been able to calculate very precisely the amount of radiation dose deposited in different organs of the human body from astrophysical sources.

"We found that astronauts' radiation exposure is comparable to the dose that cancer patients receive during radiation treatment," he said in an interview. "By comparing our calculations with data from radiation therapy, we have been able to estimate the health risks to astronauts from background radiation in space [Galactic Cosmic Rays] and solar storms [Solar Proton Events]," explained Atri. "Equipped with this knowledge, we will be in a better position to develop technologies to mitigate the impact of radiation and help with the UAE's efforts to establish a human base on Mars. We will publish our findings very soon and share our results with the scientific community in the UAE and abroad," he added.

First city on Mars

As announced in 2017, the United Arab Emirates' Mars 2117 project includes the launch of a programme to prepare the Emirates for Mars and space exploration. The project aims to build the first city on Mars in 100 years, which will be achieved through various scientific partnerships.

The project will be associated with research topics related to the exploration of faster transport systems to Mars, as well as housing construction and energy and food production. It will also seek to find faster methods of transport to and from Mars.

As reported by WAM on 12 July 2020, a senior scientist from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said that the UAE's plan to build the first human settlement on Mars by 2117 would be possible. "I think we will get there," said Dr. Lori Glaze, director of NASA's Division of Planetary Science, who referred to the great interest in the Red Planet: "I would say that having several countries now [exploring Mars] has increased our ability [globally] to come and go to Mars.

Dr. Atri also indicated that a planned space biology laboratory at the Space Science Center at NYUAD will support UAE research aboard the International Space Station (ISS). "The laboratory will have two components: a microgravity component, which will simulate the microgravity of microbial samples, and a radiation component where we will expose microbial samples to ultraviolet radiation. The idea is to be able to simulate conditions similar to outer space in the laboratory", explained Atri, an astrophysicist interested in Mars, exoplanets, human spaceflight and astrobiology.

The Emirates has a growing programme of manned space flight and its next step is to carry out scientific experiments on board the International Space Station, he said. "Our research in the laboratory will help us to develop potential experiments to be carried out on board the ISS and will assist with UAE's efforts in this field. We are currently assembling and testing our microgravity equipment and should be able to start experiments by the end of this year," said Atri.

Using data from Hope Probe

The NYUAD Center will use data from Al-Amal (Hope), the Emirates' historic mission to Mars, for this research. "One of our goals with the data from the Hope probe is to understand how galactic cosmic background radiation and radiation from abrupt solar storms interact with the Martian atmosphere," the scientist said.

"We will combine the data from the Al-Amal probe with data from NASA's Curiosity rover, which is based on the Gale crater on Mars to understand how radiation spreads to the planet's surface. This will help us to better understand the radiation environment on the surface of Mars in case of extreme events that will be very useful in planning human missions on Mars," explained Atri. "We are also interested in learning more about how solar radiation contributes to the erosion of the Martian atmosphere and how it changes its chemical composition over short time scales," he added.

Research on life on Mars

About his research on life on Mars, Dr Atri said that the surface of Mars has been studied extensively over the years, but the underground environment is unexplored.

In an article published in the journal Nature Science in July, he proposed a mechanism by which life, if it ever existed on Mars, could survive just below its surface today, as the WAM agency has reported.

The ExoMars mission, a joint effort between Russia's Roscosmos State Corporation and the European Space Agency to be launched in 2022, will study samples up to two metres below the surface and these will be the first results of the underground environment, including studies of signs of life, he said.

"There is a possibility of a breakthrough as soon as a mission starts collecting samples from the subsurface after landing. As ExoMars has a launch window between August and October 2022, I expect that we will get results sometime by the summer of 2023," the scientist said.

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