Guillem Anglada-Escudé is a doctor in astrophysics and a researcher at the Institute of Space Sciences (ICE-CSIC) with a Ramón y Cajal contract since 2019. He is an expert in exoplanets, data analysis and planetary exploration. He has led the team of the international Sustainable Offworld Network (SONet), which has designed the Nüwa project: a model for sustainable development on Mars, which was among the 10 finalists in the competition organized by The Mars Society last year. You can learn more about this project in the exhibition “Marte. The red mirror ”of the Center for Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB), open until July 11, in which Anglada-Escudé has actively participated.
Anglada-Escudé is also the principal investigator of the team that discovered the closest exoplanet to Earth in 2016: Proxima b. He leads the Red Dots project team, focused on the detection of the terrestrial planets closest to the Sun , and is a member of the CARMENES consortium. In recent years, he has worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Carnegie Institute for Science in the United States, at the University of Göttingen, in Germany, and as a professor at Queen Mary University of London, in the United Kingdom.
Astrophysicist Carl Sagan left a message for astronauts going to Mars in the future, saying that he didn’t know why we want to go to Mars, but that he was glad they were there. Why do we want to go to Mars?
We want to investigate Mars, just as we want to investigate Antarctica or how the Earth works, and Mars has very peculiar elements in the solar system. Basically it is to see if life can start somewhere other than Earth. If the answer were yes and we found a fossil record of some form of life, that would indicate that the Universe is probably full of life. This can be on Mars or on the moons of Jupiter. If there was life on Mars with the conditions that existed, which resemble those on Earth, it would mean that life is a ubiquitous phenomenon and that, therefore, we are not alone.
On Mars we find two things: on the one hand, the origin of life; and, on the other hand, the fact of trying to live in different places, trying to leave the planet, see if it is possible to live outside the Earth. Some think that Mars serves as a lifeboat in case something happens on Earth, but I don’t think it is a lifeboat. Planetary exploration – not space exploration – forces us to get out of our comfort zone, take perspective and reformulate very fundamental things. Eventually establishing a new settlement or a new society on Mars would probably give us the solutions to many problems that we have on Earth as well.
What would you say to someone who asked you what benefits space exploration can bring in the current context of a pandemic?
This is the question that all basic science has to answer. What need is there to study quantum physics, how particles or certain animals behave? In the end, it is knowledge that accumulates and interweaves and helps to progress. Real progress does not occur by focusing on a specialized area, but by integrating what is learned from Mars with what is learned in quantum physics and what is learned in biology. It is one of the fertile grounds to develop new concepts.
They will tell us that space is very expensive, but this is very fallacious: it is not true that it is expensive. There is a perception and communication problem. It is perceived that they are enormous amounts of money, but because it is [an expense] very specific: it is condensed into a mission or an instrument. Progress comes from intertwining knowledge from various branches. Space exploration, especially human exploration, seems more expensive. Putting the human factor makes science more human as well, more with culture, with the site, with experimenting. Invite the rest of the population, as a society, to contribute. It is not science alone, it is exploration.
He co-leads the Sustainable Offworld Network (SONet) initiative, which investigates human settlement on other worlds, especially the Moon and Mars. Does a multi-planetary and sustainable future await us? How can the creation of sustainable settlements on other planets be achieved without falling into predation?
The issue of sustainability in SONet is given by two aspects. One is wanting to establish a base on Mars so that it is independent and can operate and grow; and, the other, the sustainability of the Earth . What cannot be done is to conquer the solar system and continue to spend resources. This is what we are going to do: to generate an economy that does not depend on the Earth, that is not continually fed by predating the Earth more, but that there comes a time when it contributes positively. This can be done in many ways.
We can begin to clean the surface of the planet of certain infrastructures that we have been using for historical reasons. The production of energy could be done in space: we have all the energy of the Sun for whatever we want. I’m not talking about 10 years from now, I’m just talking about a century from now. In the long run it is a civilizational solution. There is plenty of space in millions and millions of square kilometers for solar panels, and all without touching the Earth to start downloading many things. That’s kind of the long-term sustainability vision.
What other economic activities can be done in space that relieve the Earth of these charges?
We could do them all eventually. For example, the manufacture of semiconductors, which are needed to make solar panels and for all technology, in principle. Or communications, basically all: you can have large telecommunications stations from space and liberate the Earth. In space, there are certain advantages. Right now they don’t outweigh the cons, because we don’t have infrastructure in space; But when we are in space, we are in a very high vacuum, there is no atmosphere that is polluted and things can be much more controlled.
Can SONet help mitigate climate change on Earth?
Not directly, because it is not our objective as an organization, but one of SONet’s objectives in the medium term is to make demonstrators of Martian cities where ways of operating that are directly sustainable are implemented. What is available is used: carbon dioxide to condense it into organic material, to start manufacturing … This needs to be developed. They will tell me that we can do this here on Earth without the excuse of Mars and I do not believe it, because we have been civilized for 2,000 years and as a society we have never made this investment.
We have another project, very preliminary, in the Arctic. We are debating with a university to see if we can use construction techniques in the Arctic while also providing what is known about how to operate on other planets, such as using new minerals so that coal is not needed to make a home implementation. It is an example of the kinds of things we want to do in the face of climate change and that inspires us to implement solutions here on Earth.
What would Nüwa, the sustainable city project on Mars, look like?
There are very particular aspects, but, for example, the resources would be used as they are there. Mars has difficulties because it has low pressure and radiation problems, so we would use its mountains, its cliffs and its rock to build inside. The city is embedded in the rock, it is not on the surface. The resource is not oil or water: the environment itself is a resource that can be used. If we put it on the cliff, it has natural light that can enter through the sides and into the rock, and it gives you the verticality of a city that is condensed.
It is a city: it is not a scientific base or a military base. When we dimension it, we count on the fact that there must be infrastructure, transport, a number of square meters, volumes and food per person so that they can have a comfortable life. We work with an architectural firm called ABIBOO Studio, which is dedicated to designing cities in India and the United States. It is not about sending people there to suffer, but rather that people decide to go there because it is a different way of living. And then, how they organize themselves culturally will depend a lot on the immigration model.
In the end, the only remaining concern is energy and labor consumption: it takes about 10 times more energy to keep people alive and for the city to develop than is needed on Earth. A factor 10 is large, but it is not a factor 1,000 or 1,000,000, it is in the order of magnitude. The idea is that that extra load would be made by machines: artificial intelligence, industrial standardization, etc.
Rovers have been sent to Mars over the past 20 years, but no manned missions have yet been sent. NASA aims to do so throughout the 2030s. Given the technology and resources, when could this sustainable city be established on Mars?
That’s the prediction an economist would make of how the next decade or two would work out, but that stops working when disruptive events happen. I think it is plausible when we have high tonnage ships. When SpaceX or the Chinese Space Agency have these ships to load 20 or 30 tons to the surface of Mars, it will be automatic, the process of building bases on the Moon and on Mars will begin. And when that happens, all these 10-year plans are going to stop making sense.
Physically and technologically we are ready to do it, it is a question of whether we want to do it or not. I would like us all to understand with the Mars exercise that with 10% of the countries organizing themselves, it would be enough to start that effort. It is not cheap, but it is economically feasible if a small fraction of the world’s population is coordinated.
I would not venture to say that in 10 years we will be bringing rocks back from Mars. Maybe in 10 years we will have permanent bases on the Moon and we will be doing manufacturing on the Moon , and this will completely change the economy. In this sense, I want to be more optimistic. The future holds more surprises than we expect; if not, it would be very boring.
He was the principal investigator of the team that discovered the closest known exoplanet: Proxima b. What is special about Proxima by its star Proxima Centauri?
If there is life beyond Earth and we want to be able to recognize it, the easiest way is to try looking for planets similar to our own. If you look for planets in red dwarfs, which are stars about 10 times smaller than the Sun, those planets are easier to spot. We have the techniques and we develop the methodology to find these types of planets, and we apply that methodology to the star closest to the Sun, which is Proxima Centauri. These red dwarfs are the most common stars in the Universe and it is becoming increasingly clear that practically all have terrestrial planets, but we did not know it then. Why is it relevant compared to others? Because it is the closest star to the Sun.
Proxima b and others are defining what the instrumentation of the next decade will look like. What we want to see now is if these planets can harbor life or if there is evidence of exotic biological or chemical activity on their surface and hence the relevance in which everything is converging. They are places where it is plausible that there is life in some form and we have the technological capacity – or we can develop it now – to explore, spectroscopically at least, their atmospheres and see if there are signs of peculiar things.
Discovering Proxima b placed it in the list of the ten most relevant scientists of 2016, according to the journal Nature. What does such recognition mean in the field of astrophysics?
Scientifically, much less than what people think. That gives you visibility, but not so much in science, but outside of it. It has allowed me to talk to people I would never have had access to: politicians, journalists, thinkers, engineers, businessmen, innovators, people that scientists don’t normally see.
My thorn is stuck because I had the idea that I could request funding to continue an investigation, but that did not happen. I came face to face with reality. It didn’t open many doors for me scientifically. However, I came into contact with people who even see that what they decide moves the world.
He has also led the Red Dots project team, for the detection of terrestrial planets closest to the Sun. In what phase is the project now?
Red Dots is quirky. It works very well, now scientifically rather than communicatively, but it has a very important problem. It is a continuation of Pale Red Dot, the Proxima Centauri project, so it is always in the shade. Finding Proxima b should have been the culmination and it was the beginning. Red Dots continues to function, it is very efficient, it is a great project and I continue to be involved. Since I wanted to start working on other things, like Mars, I have passed supervision and direction to Sandra Jeffers, who works at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Exploration in Göttingen.
It is the same campaign, the tools that we developed for Proxima Centauri are now being applied systematically to a few stars and we are sweeping the immediate solar system environment to detect these planets that are closer and that can be more easily characterized, but it is a detection exercise. . In terms of exoplanets, the next big step is going to be their characterization.
Is this going to come before Mars or not? I think it would be better for us to develop the infrastructure to be able to manufacture from space before getting into these mega-missions. I am very excited about the nearby terrestrial planets, but I don’t know if it will have enough impact on society to justify the expense it would entail. On the other hand, I see very clearly that with a base on Mars or on the Moon, where science is developed, science is done in situ , people go and experience it, there can be a much more significant advance in society.
She has participated in the CARMENES consortium, which includes scientists from 11 Spanish and German institutions. How is this type of work with multidisciplinary international teams? Has it changed with the pandemic?
Not much has changed, in fact. The collaborations we have made are specific. The type of collaborations such as Red Dots or projects such as SONet, instead of having a liquid resource, consists of looking for collaborators who are experts in other topics to be able to operate. My specialty here is coordinating and organizing ourselves with multimedia tools, seeing how to distribute the work, create groups … At CARMENES I am as a consortium participant, along with 200 other people. It is a different collaboration, more rigid in its objectives. I am collaborating, participating in the articles, but it also has to extend much more in time.
Personally, I can do projects like the one on Mars at most once a year because they consume me a lot personally, and even with collaborations friction is created and groups have to be managed. This is the greatest difficulty: finding the right point where a minimum number of people are encouraged to participate and want to do so not because you pay them, but because they also learn and it helps them to develop.
Apart from the Pale Red Dot project, which aimed to communicate the search process for Proxima b, it has participated in other scientific dissemination initiatives. How do you think communication with the general public can be improved to bring scientific work closer?
The first thing: be very clear about what you want to do and who you want to reach. When you design an outreach communication exercise for the general public, then it is difficult to measure whether it has worked or not. Now it can be quantified with social networks, but before it was very complicated. That you want to improve the perception of science in your town, how are you going to quantify it? That you want politicians to be more sensitive to something, you should still design your campaign for politicians, institutions or governments. I know scientists who have been invited to the United States Congress to speak about exoplanets, and the congressmen asked them directly about whether we are going to find life and if it has implications for people in their day-to-day lives. Here we are missing a bit of that interaction.
What projects are on your horizon? Where would you like to direct your scientific career in the future?
Now I am very involved in SONet, in making it grow. Also on exoplanets, following things that are developed, such as using artificial intelligence methods for exoplanet data analysis or doing basic research with machine learning methods. I continue to work at CARMENES and contribute to the CHEOPS mission of the European Space Agency (ESA), in the scientific team. Looking to the future, apart from SONet and the development of the space economy, scientifically, we are also looking at a European consortium called LIFE to make an interferometer from space to directly image nearby exoplanets.
What led you to study astrophysics and dedicate yourself to research? Between 2002 and 2004 he was a councilor. Was it difficult to choose between all your interests?
I was a councilor in the Ullastrell town hall, but I was born in Terrassa (Barcelona). I wanted to study science, it was quite clear to me, I was very fond of science fiction, movies like Star Wars, and I ended up reading a book by Kim Stanley Robinson: Red Mars. That was what made me choose space exploration. I didn’t care what kind of astronomy it was, but what I wanted to do was planetary sciences, astrophysics …
I was also involved in youth associations in my town and I went to the City Hall to try to reinforce the associative fabric, which was being destroyed. I was in the middle of the thesis when I was a councilor and I had to choose, because it was too much both at the same time. I chose research because it filled me more at that time and it seemed to me that it was the way to make the world a better place. I don’t know if I would have made the same decision today, but I think it was the right one. I chose to work and be an expert in something and if I want to dedicate myself to politics in the future, which I have not ruled out, to be able to contribute as an expert in a more positive way.
What would you say to those young people who want to dedicate themselves to astrophysics?
First, that astrophysics, space science or engineering are not studied just to be academic. When you have studied Physics, Engineering or Mathematics, you are already a scientist, whether you have a doctorate or not, whatever you do next. He has a different mental way of approaching problems.
One needs a motivation: to go to Mars, be an astronaut, develop the AIDS vaccine … But few are going to do it directly with their hands. Science is not only those people who do it with their hands, but institutions, companies, the whole of society, and we can contribute a lot outside of what is the classical academic path. My dream is that there is more permeability, that is, that people can study, work for a few years in the company, return to the academy, develop their doctoral thesis and, with that background, return to the company or the academic system in a non-formal way. precarious. I think that permeability is a trend that will have to gain ground.
