Potential Landing Sites for EU Mars Rover Selected

kfz versicherung writes "In 2013 the European Space Agency will launch its mission to Mars - ExoMars. The multi-million-euro mission calls for a rover weighing just over 200kg that can trundle over the martian soil in search of past and present life. Now prime landing spots have been selected. The list includes two sites at Meridiani Planum, the flat expanse near Mars' equator where Nasa's Opportunity found possible evidence for an ancient sea. Early in Earth's history, all the primordial biochemistry took place in phyllosilicates, some kind of mineral that is a good matrix for preserving organic matter. Scientists are guessing that a similar site is the best place to start looking for fossil life on the Red Planet."

Comments

Life with phyllosilicates?

[dhirsch226]

The posting states "all the primordial biochemistry took place in phyllosilicates, some kind of mineral that is a good matrix for preserving organic matter". This is partially wrong, partially misleading, and partially speculative.

• First, phyllosilicates are minerals whose structure is built out of SiO4 tetrahedra polymerized into 2-D sheets at the atomic scale. Examples are clay minerals and micas (biotite and muscovite, principally).
• Second, the "life began on phyllosilicates" is merely an interesting hypothesis, and has not made it to the stage of theory. The basis for this is that phyllosilicates have those sheets stacked up in a periodic structure, and the spacing can be on the order of the spacing in RNA (disclaimer: I'm no expert on this hypothesis, and I don't have the paper in front of me now).
• Finally, there's no way that phyllosilicates, or any mineral, are going to "preserve organic matter". Organic matter preservation is simply related to the history of the material (e.g., temperature, pressure, time).

-Dave Hirsch
Assoc. Prof. of Geology
Western WA Univ.

why not lots of rovers ?

[cats-paw]

Why does NASA have a fixation on sending single units to Mars ?

Why can't NASA work on a mission which will deposit 10's or 100's of rovers ?

Granted, there is a weight problem here, since each rover would have to be very light to carry that many of them to Mars.

However imagine the coolness factor of 20 or 30 sojourners running around the surface of mars. You could split modularized science experiments up among them, having a basic structure and each having a set of modular science experiment units.

With modularized components built in (relatively) large quantities the marginal cost of sending 30 rovers to Mars should be minimal.

Seems to me that your chances of finding something interesting go up dramatically.