The European Space Agency ( ESA ) ’s shiny new ExoMars rover lastly has a name : Rosalind Franklin .
The roamer is schedule for heave off on July 25 , 2020 , and will land on Mars on March 19 , 2021 . Excitingly , it will track down for grounds of living – both past and present – on the Red Planet . It will be equipped with a practice , permit it to dig 2 meters ( 6.6 feet ) into the ground to sieve through the soil for signs of life .
According toESA , the bird of passage “ will be the first of its kind to aggregate the capability to roam around Mars and to study it at depth . ” It is part of the ExoMars program , a joint venture between ESA and Roscosmos , the Russian outer space means .
Last summertime , the UK Space Agencylaunched a competitioninviting anyone from an ESA appendage state to reconcile a name for the new rover . More than 36,000 names were eagerly supplied by the populace , and now , a instrument panel of experts have chosen their deary . The name was revealed by British astronaut Tim Peake at the Airbus manufacturing plant in Stevenage , UK , where the wanderer is being set up .
So why Rosalind Franklin ?
Franklin ’s work was full of life to the discovery of DNA ’s double helix complex body part , but sherarely welcome the recognition she deserves .
Working as an ex - ray crystallographer at King ’s College London in the 1950s , Franklin give rise gamey - answer image of DNA fibers , showing that DNA has a helical structure . This datum was show to Cambridge scientist James Watson and Francis Crick by her co-worker , Maurice Wilkins , allow them with grounds for their hypothesis that DNA has a 3D turbinate structure . unhappily , Franklin died from ovarian Crab in 1958 , and in 1962 , Watson , Crick , and Wilkins were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology for a find in which she play a crucial role .
Franklinalso showedthat RNA , a molecule similar to DNA , has a undivided - stranded structure and carried out critical piece of work on the baccy mosaic virus , a disease that can have a withering impact on a turn of plant life mintage .
“ This name reminds us that it is in the human genes to search . Science is in our DNA , and in everything we do at ESA,”saidESA Director General Jan Woerner . “ Rosalind the rover captures this spirit and bear us all to the forefront of space geographic expedition . ”
