While calls continue to be made to bring Martian debris back to Earth for intensive research, scientists are also devising instruments and techniques that could be sent to Mars to search for life there. Could these lower-cost approaches obviate the early need for samples taken directly from Mars?
This option brings to mind a comment by Marcel Proust, the French novelist, literary critic, and essayist who wrote this novel. In search of lost time: “The real voyage of discovery lies not in looking for new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” Sample return programs are the best way to discover previous life on Mars, but current life on Mars If you want to discover it, your best bet is to do it with instruments right there on Mars.
This is the view of Dirk Schulze-Makuch, a professor of astrobiology and planetary habitability at the Technical University of Berlin in Germany. Additionally, he believes that currently available methodologies are suitable and well-developed for determining whether life exists on Mars.
“But to get clear results, we need to mix and match some of these methodologies,” Schulz-Makuch told Space.com.
Related: Scientists focus on red during NASA’s challenging Mars sample return mission
mysterious chemical activity
Schulz-Makuch goes back to the 1970s with NASA’s two Viking landers missions. It was a busy time trying to answer the provocative question: Is Mars home to life?
Biology experiments have detected unexpected and mysterious chemical activity in the Martian soil, but the majority of Viking Mars researchers have no definitive proof that living microorganisms are present in the soil near the landing site. I thought there was no evidence.
Perhaps twin Viking landers did Answer the questions about life on Mars as follows: Could you please repeat the question?
“Basically, the Viking approach was correct,” Schulz-Makuch said. “The problem back then, nearly 50 years ago, was that our methods weren’t very sophisticated yet. We didn’t have a good understanding of the Martian environment. We’ve made great progress on both counts. ” said the astrobiologist.
difficult to interpret
Schulz-Makuch said it’s true that the return of Mars samples will allow scientists to further apply our most sophisticated techniques, including those not yet available on space missions.
But because soil samples take so long to be boxed up, both on the surface of Mars and during the long-distance transport from Mars to Earth, “we’ll likely only find organic debris that could possibly support life, and “This approach would work well for past life on Mars,” Schulz-Makuch said. “But if our goal is to discover extant life forms, in-situ missions are the way to go.”
viking results
“There are unavoidable tensions between the return of Mars samples and the search for life,” said Chris McKay, a space scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California.
“It’s clear that the search for life is best done using samples in a laboratory on Earth,” McKay told Space.com. “But given the prospect of bringing back samples that may contain Martian life, many people pause and wonder if it is actually regulated by law, and some might even say it is prohibited.” not” [United Nations] It’s the Outer Space Treaty. ”
Based on the Viking results, can we assume that there is no life on the surface of Mars?
“My answer to that is both yes and no,” McKay responded. Mars researchers have cited data collected by Viking in 1976, that the NASA Phoenix lander discovered perchlorate in 2007, and that since landing in 2012 it has shown low levels of organic matter still cranking. It highlights analysis from the Mars rover Curiosity.
“Most Mars scientists argue that the reactivity seen in Martian soil is chemical and that there is currently no surface biology, and that’s true,” McKay said. “But that’s not the case. This view is not unanimous,” he said, citing claims of extant life on Mars and the possibility that it was detected by the Viking Label emission experiment.
public opinion
McKay said both NASA and the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR), an interdisciplinary scientific group, consider returning samples from Mars to be a potential biological risk.
McKay said: “The standard of evidence for achieving scientific consensus is clearly lower than the standard that must be applied to the precautionary protection of Earth. Life may not be the scientifically preferred explanation for Earth. “No,” he claimed in print. [Viking Labeled Release] Although we have seen results, we cannot yet rule out the possibility. ”
Presumably, public opinion and legal proceedings “do not support the assumption that there is no life on Mars for the purpose of returning samples or astronauts to Earth without further analysis of Mars, regardless of the scientific consensus.” McKay concluded.
mature pipeline
One potential NASA mission that is gaining support is Mars Life Explorer (MLE). The deep-burrowing lander will focus on searching for existing signs of life on Mars.
The MLE received heartfelt support from the latest Planetary Science Decade Report by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, published in April 2022.
Amy Williams, an astrobiologist and MLE’s “science advocate” and assistant professor at the University of Florida’s College of Geological Sciences in Gainesville, said the MLE’s instrument suite is designed to be “instrument agnostic.” .
Williams said there is an existing suite of equipment that could be flown on the proposed MLE, as well as new equipment and technology currently in the mature pipeline that could replace it. “There is a very real opportunity for alternative new equipment to join the mission.”
life screening
In the meantime, the research team is working on the development of SOLID (“Signs Of LIFE Detector”), a study carried out by the Spanish Center for Astrobiology. There is also the Microfluidic Life His Analyzer (MILA), developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Or how about building high-tech equipment to look for life on Mars, the equipment used during robotic ice-mining missions, which is thriving today?
This approach is being advanced by Steven Benner, founder of the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution and Firebird Biomolecular Sciences LLC.
In fact, the Agnostic Life Finder Association (ALFA) was founded, with both Benner and Jan Špaček, inventor of the Agnostic Life Finder (ALF), as leading members.
“The only way to achieve the goals of ALFA Mars is to conduct a screening for life on Mars before the first humans land on Mars.” Association website declares.
So, in the end, it appears that predictions of whether or not life on Mars still remain speckled with uncertainty.
Reconsidering Carl Sagan’s famous quote that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” astrobiologist Schulz Makuch’s view is that “based on our current understanding of Mars… unusual charges That means there is no life on Mars and there has never been life on Mars. Let’s go and find out! ”