NASA's Instrument For Detecting Life On Mars

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."

Comments

ESA providing transport?

[MichaelSmith]

The cruise phase and orbiter operations sound quite a bit like Cassini, so I have a good feeling about that. But the Europeans have never landed a vehicle on Mars. The Russians pulled it off once or twice but NASA is the only organisation which could deliver a payload to the surface with any certanty.

I would be happier to see the science payload come from the ESA, and the vehicle from NASA. Seems a lot safer that way.

Re:Heh

[MichaelSmith]

that totals up to 0 life

Actually Mars is a lot like Antarctica. The air temperature is sometimes above zero C, but mostly below.

Never the less, life survives there. At one stage one of the experiments which flew to mars on Viking was tried out in Antarctia and failed to detect life.