On February 19, a NASA rover arrived on the Red Planet to search for signs of ancient microbial life. The six-wheeled, car-sized astrobiology probe is expected to collect and cache Martian rock and dust to seek signs of past life over the coming Martian year (roughly two Earth years).
At Kyoto University in Western Japan, practical training is also being carried out to study the environment necessary for survival on Mars. There are many issues to be solved, but what we want to know most is the kind of life awaits us there. Will it meet our expectations and become the “second Earth”?
Kyoto University (Japan) and the University of Arizona (United States) began a joint training program in 2019 for a hypothetical migration to Mars. Biosphere 2 is a glass-enclosed facility towering out of the desert in the state of Arizona. The 1.27-hectare (3.08-acre) site, which is comparable to the size of Hanshin Koshien Stadium in Western Japan, features areas that artificially reproduce regions of the global environment, such as rainforests, savannas, and the sea. “It’s like a ‘mini earth’ packed with the essence of the earth,” explains Professor Yosuke Yamashiki, PhD, of Kyoto University.
At this center, Japanese and American students have been conducting studies on the efficiency of photosynthesis of trees and the water quality of artificial seas in closed surroundings. They have been examining the living environment in the biosphere with the premise that a similar facility would be set up on Mars, and have considered the option of reproducing only forests by planting trees for a design best suited to supporting life.
Read the complete article at www.japan-forward.com.