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- CRISM: Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars
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Tag Archives: life
Looking for Mars life with lidar
A sensing technique that the U.S. military currently uses to remotely monitor the air to detect potentially life-threatening chemicals, toxins, and pathogens has inspired a new instrument that could “sniff” for life on Mars and other targets in the solar … Continue reading
Earthquakes, ‘Marsquakes,’ and possible life
A new study shows that rocks formed by the grinding together of other rocks during earthquakes are rich in trapped hydrogen — a finding that suggests similar seismic activity on Mars may produce enough hydrogen to support life. Researchers from … Continue reading
Rocks in Chile help the search for Mars life
Robots like Viking, Phoenix, and Curiosity have found indirect evidence of oxalate minerals on Mars. New techniques tested in the Chile’s Atacama Desert could help future Mars rovers analyze these minerals for possible by-products of life. Organic oxalates tie up … Continue reading
Evidence of Mars life hard to find at impact sites?
Scientists suggest signs of life from under Mars’ surface may not survive in rocks excavated by some meteorite impacts. Scientists analysing samples from Mars’ surface have so far not conclusively detected organic compounds that are indigenous to Mars, which would … Continue reading
Maars on Mars: Valuable sites in the search for traces of past Martian life
Planetary Geomorphology Image of the Month, April 29, 2016: Sandro Rossato (University of Padova, Italy). Terrestrial maar-diatremes are small volcanoes (see this previous post for a general description) which have craters whose floor lies below the pre-eruptive surface and are … Continue reading
Antarctic fungi survive Martian conditions for 18 months on ISS
European scientists have gathered tiny fungi that take shelter in Antarctic rocks and sent them to the International Space Station. After 18 months on board in conditions similar to those on Mars, more than 60% of their cells remained intact, … Continue reading
Antarctic Dry Valleys reveal limits to life?
Failure to find active microbes in coldest Antarctic soils has implications for search for life on Mars. It took Jackie Goordial over 1000 petri dishes before she was ready to accept what she was seeing. Or not seeing. Goordial, a … Continue reading
Posted in Reports
Tagged Antarctica, astrobiology, Dry Valleys, life, University Valley
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Methanogens can survive low pressures on Mars
New research at the University of Arkansas suggests that methanogens – among the simplest and oldest organisms on Earth – could survive on Mars. Methanogens, microorganisms in the domain Archaea, use hydrogen as their energy source and carbon dioxide as … Continue reading
Honing search methods to find Mars life
For centuries, people have imagined the possibility of life on Mars, but probes have so far uncovered no life at all. Yet Mars does have evidence that a prime condition for life once may have existed there: water. “There has … Continue reading