Speaking of finding signs of life on The planet Mars is a fascinating subject; But first we need to know where to look. Getting to Mars is hard, so we need to make sure that we make the best use of the available opportunities and that our journey will not be in vain.
The surface of the dry lands of Mars is almost the size of the lands of our blue planet, and it has only one fundamental difference. If we throw a stone towards the earth, the probability of this stone landing in a place where there is life is very high; But the history of life on Mars is a big question mark for which we still don’t have an answer.
Artificial intelligence and Machine learning can reduce the difficulty of searching for life on Mars. According to ScienceAlertAn international team of researchers, led by one of the SETI astronomers named Kimberly Warren-Rhodes, has proven that these tools can help humans find signs of life on this planet by identifying hidden patterns in geographic data.
According to Warren-Rhodes, their team’s framework allows them to combine the power of statistical ecology with machine learning. This combination helps researchers to discover and predict the patterns and laws by which nature survives and propagates itself in the harshest regions of the earth. He continues: “We hope that other astronomy teams will also adapt to our approach to map other habitable places and biological artifacts. These models will help us design custom patterns and road maps that will direct the rovers to the places most likely to have life in the past; Although these places are rare or far-sighted.
One of the most similar regions to the dry plains of Mars on Earth is the Atacama Desert in Chile. Atacama is considered one of the driest regions on earth and there is no rain in this desert for decades. Even in this dry and rainless desert, signs of life can be found in holes and underground.
Warren-Rhodes and her colleagues focused their studies on an area on the border between the Atacama Desert and the Altipano Plateau. This area, called Salar de Pajonales, is an ancient riverbed and one of the most similar environments on Earth to Mars. The height of 3541 meters in this area makes it exposed to more ultraviolet rays. Lack of oxygen and dryness and high salinity are also other characteristics of this region; But still, life forms can be found there that live in mineral formations.
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