dr-becky 1 day ago
astrophysicist #Space and Time

We need to Return Martian Rock Samples to Test for Signs of Life

Is there life on Mars? It’s a BIG question that David Bowie has been asking for a long time!

So the majority of missions and rovers that get sent to Mars have a focus on figuring out if life currently exists on Mars, or more likely (we think), whether life once existed on Mars in the past but no longer.


From the rovers of the past like Opportunity, to the rovers of the future like the Rosalind Franklin rover (ESA’s ExoMars mission), and to Perseverance and Curiosity rovers currently operating on Mars. The Perserverance rover is collecting rock samples and leaving them on the surface for a future Mars mission to collect and return to Earth.


But why?

Why do we need to return samples to Earth to test for this when the rovers are essentially scientific lab instruments on wheels? Well a few years ago this paper by Azua-Bustos and collaborators was published who used the techniques available to current and planned Mars rovers to test whether they could find signs of life in a sample of rock from Earth in the Atacama desert.


And spoiler alert: they couldn’t...


Dr Becky Smethurst
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