Autonomous Robot Finds Life in Atacama Desert

Neil Halelamien writes "Nature and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette report that a NASA-funded "robotic astrobiologist" named Zoë (a successor to the Hyperion rover) has found life in Chile's Atacama desert. The Atacama is the Earth's driest desert, with steep slopes and rugged terrain. This is the first robot to remotely detect life, finding bacteria (and lichens, in the less dry areas) by using a fluorescent imager. The robot could also spray special dyes to detect life signatures like DNA, protein, lipids, and carbohydrates. Zoë's next assignment will be to autonomously sample soil over 50 kilometers of the Atacama. The Atacama desert is thought to be similar to Mars; instruments similar to those used on the 1970s Viking missions have previously failed to detect life there."

Comments

Contamination probably

[Eternally optimistic]

Most likely, the researchers who put the robot in the desert didn't wash their feet properly.

Re:Contamination probably

[Wavicle]

The Atacama receives a very small amount of water in the form of fog or dew. Although the Atacama is very dry, it is not very warm. Something like a million people live in the Atacama. In some particularly dry spots, they live from the water collected by giant "fog collectors".

IANABiologist

[thedustbustr]

Why would life on mars necessarily be DNA-based, and why would protiens and lipids nessarily evolve if life evolves? Certainly, other methods of reproduction may have evolved.

Re:IANABiologist

[Toresica]

Sure, we might not recognise life if we find it. But we know DNA-based life works - why not look for it?

I've heard speculation that the first microbes might have come to Earth from Mars - if so, it would likely be somewhat similar to life here.

Re:IANABiologist

[flyingsquid]

Why would life on mars necessarily be DNA-based, and why would protiens and lipids nessarily evolve if life evolves? Certainly, other methods of reproduction may have evolved.

One possibility is that the Martian life and Earth life are related. If rocks can be blown off the surface of Mars and land here- and presumably, vice-versa- it's quite possible that in the early days around 3-4 billion years ago, impact ejecta formed a sort of interplanetary shuttle service for microbes. If Mars became habitable before Earth, it's even possible life actually evolved there, and then was seeded here.

Now we've found life on Earth...

[Anonymous Coward]

...we can start looking for intelligent beings.

Autonomous robot takes pride in it's work...

[kaleco]

...demands pay rise and more more holidays.

homegrown

[Doc Ruby]

Good thing they didn't demo the device before Congress: there's certainly no intelligent life to detect there.

1cm/year water due to fog

[aepervius]

Moisture is probably more than enough to sustain lichen and bacteria colony. Especially that this does not get that hot (link from article say it all) and part are even snowy due to altitude. Actually it may be the driest desert but not the hotest. So getting water might be a problem but eveaporation mightnot be the biggest problem. Heck, even in sahara, where you have mostly sand, you have life.

Why do we need a rover for this?

[Red_Icculus]

We should send Google to search for life on Mars.

In related news

[Anonymous Coward]

"...The robot could also spray special dyes to detect life signatures like DNA, protein, lipids, and carbohydrates..."

In related news, Atacama tribe sues NASA for building spray-painting robot, spoiling natural habitat of ancient desert. NASA plans bigger robot equipped with boom box and head scarf to verify once and for all that life does not exist there. "Instead of trying to find life, we figured we just keep making our robots more and more annoying until some alien shows up with a ray gun."