Zita Martins is an associate professor at Instituto Superior Técnico [Higher Technical Institute] and the first Portuguese astrobiologist. Aged 40, a fan of the series Cosmos and Carl Sagan, the guest on the sixth episode of the programme “Inspiring the Future - SingularityU Portugal”, joined a group of NASA scientists conducting research projects in 2009. She spent 15 years working in different parts of the world with a single goal: exploring the manner in which life could have started on Earth by searching for organic compounds in meteorite samples.
“We hope there will be a number of space missions in the coming decades that will enable us to determine whether or not there is life not only on Mars but elsewhere in our solar system. The next step will be to attempt to discover if there is extraterrestrial life in other solar systems”, said Zita Martins.
When talking about the possibility of extraterrestrial life, and in light of the scarcity of resources on Earth, another issue arises: the possibility of colonising other planets. Zita Martins is categoric. “We need to treat our planet well and not be thinking about and planning to leave because it will become inviable sometime in the future.”
