Scientists have discovered a surprisingly simple way to check for active life on Mars, and the necessary tools are already sitting on NASA’s Curiosity rover.
Old Instruments, New Purpose
The breakthrough comes from PhD student Solomon Hirsch and Professor Mark Sephton at Imperial College London. The pair realised that the rover’s gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer (GC-MS), a device that has been used on Martian missions since the 1970s’ Viking landers, could do more than originally intended.
Instead of requiring brand-new instruments, the GC-MS can be used to detect chemical bonds within molecules that form the membranes of living cells. These molecules, known as intact polar lipids (IPLs), are found in many living organisms on Earth, and crucially, they break down within hours after death. This means the method could distinguish between living organisms and those long gone.
Clear Signals of Life
The team’s findings, published in Nature Space Exploration, show that IPLs produce a distinctive “spike” when analysed by GC-MS, offering an unmistakable marker of life.
“Space Agencies such as NASA and ESA don’t know their instruments can already do this,” said Professor Sephton. “Here we have developed an elegant method that rapidly and reliably identifies a chemical bond that shows the presence of viable life. The Curiosity rover just turned 13 on Mars, but who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”
Hirsch added: “When we put the intact polar lipid compounds into our GC-MS we didn’t know what to expect because these compounds are usually analysed using other techniques. The characteristic signature we identified provides a clear indicator of viable life using space-ready equipment already in use on many extraterrestrial missions. If we find signs of life beyond Earth, the first question will be: is it living right now? It’s thrilling to think that the technique we developed here could be used to help answer that question.”
Implications for Future Missions
The discovery could dramatically speed up the search for extraterrestrial life. Missions such as ESA’s ExoMars rover, designed to drill beneath the Martian surface, could apply the method to look for life hidden away from harsh surface conditions.
Professor Sephton said: “Our active life detection method could be deployed on Mars and the plumes of icy moons in the outer solar system from where the data can be sent back to Earth for interpretation, or in samples returned to Earth from potential alien biospheres.”
While the odds of finding active organisms on the surface of Mars remain low due to extreme cold and radiation, researchers believe subsurface environments could hold better chances. Beyond space exploration, the technique could also help protect Earth by quickly screening returned samples for potential biological activity.
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