A group from the College of Southampton has constructed a totally functioning reproduction of NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover, to display how house expertise might be lifesaving on Earth.
The reproduction will likely be used to get extra individuals eager about science.
The most recent Mars Rover reproduction. Picture credit score: College of Southampton
Mars Rover Reproduction
The reproduction makes use of the identical Raman expertise because the NASA Mars rover, which was despatched to Mars in 2020 to hunt out extraterrestrial life. It has a functioning mechanical arm and a mounted spectrometer to take area samples.
The College of Southampton has been on the forefront of Raman Spectroscopy since its inception – and continues analysis at the moment for makes use of inside drugs, particularly for diagnostics growth.
Raman spectroscopy makes use of vibrations and light-weight. It provides the potential for non-invasive detection and monitoring of illnesses like cancers or osteoarthritis.
Sumeet Mahajan, Professor of Molecular BioPhotonics and Imaging, helped to construct the rover and leads the diagnostic analysis.
He defined: “We knew we needed to take this info to the general public to share how this expertise can have such a wide-ranging influence – from our analysis into enhancing lives via higher diagnostics, to on the lookout for life on Mars.”
Perseverance Mars rover – the true one. Picture credit score: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Hiroki Cook dinner, BioPhotonics and Imaging PhD pupil, stated “We noticed a possibility to spotlight the most effective of our personal analysis inside Raman spectroscopy, whereas the true rover with the identical expertise roamed 140 million miles away in house.
“We’ve a singular place, in that we’ve got an extremely huge, cross-discipline data base to have the ability to assist placing one thing as huge as this collectively.
Analysis right here illustrates how house expertise is seamlessly intertwined with Earthly functions, and we wish to share that with the general public.”
The group plans to make use of the rover at public occasions, and hopes it would ignite the curiosity of future scientists.
Hiroki added: “A part of the duty for us now’s to make a legacy and be sure that the generations to return can choose up this undertaking and any future ones. We’ve the property and the sources accessible to maintain it going and we’d like to see it proceed to flourish.”
You will discover out extra in regards to the mars rover undertaking here.
Supply: University of Southampton
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