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NASA's Instrument For Detecting Life On Mars

Posted by kdawson on from the knock-knock dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "With the financial help of NASA, American and European researchers have developed a new sensor to check for life on Mars. It should also be able to determine if traces of life's molecular building blocks have been produced by anything that was once alive. The device has been tested in the Atacama Desert in Chile. It should be part of the science payload for the ExoMars rover planned for launch in 2013."

2 of 88 comments (clear)

  1. Re:If you fail on Earth, try another planet by khallow · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Life has been defined. And it's probably going to be redefined when we find extraterrestrial life.

  2. Re:Meanwhile beneath the surface of Mars... by AndroidCat · · Score: 2, Insightful

    No one could have dreamed we were being scrutinized, as someone with a microscope studies creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. Few xen even considered the possibility of life on other planets and yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this Mars with envious eyes, and slowly and surely, they drew their plans against us.
    --
    One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.