The "Cliffbot" rover is being designed to sample rock outcrops on Mars and the Moon.
Coming clean over life on Mars
10 Jun 2009
Scientists have developed a new way to clean space hardware, such as the scoops of Mars rovers, which could be used on future "search for life" missions on other planets.
The new method was developed as part of a project to study life that exists in extreme Arctic environments, which is the most similar place we have on Earth to the surface of Mars. The studies will help guide future NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) planetary missions.
The decontamination process deals with the dilemma known as 'forward contamination'—ensuring that bugs from Earth don't hitch a ride across space and jeopardise the integrity of samples collected by rovers.
The protocol involves a cocktail of chemicals that were applied and tested on various sampling devices, including a glacial ice core drill and a rover scoop.
"We are trying to avoid a case of mistaken identity," says Professor Liane Benning, a biogeochemist from the University of Leeds and co-author of the paper.
"We know that on Mars, if present, any biological signatures will be extremely scarce. Therefore it is essential that we are able to … document just how clean our sampling devices really are before we use them," she adds.
The scoops of Mars probes need to be sterilised to prevent contamination by Earth organisms.
Importantly, the new procedure doesn't just sterilise, but it also cleans off any trace organic molecules of dead organisms.
The work was carried out as part of the Arctic Mars Analogue Svalbard Expeditions, which uses Svalbard (a set of islands in the Arctic ocean) as a test site for instrumentation scheduled to fly on future Mars missions.
Svalbard is an excellent terrestrial analogue environment to Mars as life is scarce and it has a similar geology and many pristine glaciers.
"In addition, this work will guide future planetary missions, especially those to icy regions in the Solar System, such as Mars, or the moons of Jupiter and Saturn (Europa and Enceladus) where we are interested in understanding the potential habitats of cold-loving organisms living in ice," says Dr Jennifer Eigenbrode, NASA research scientist.
Adapted from information issued by the University of Leeds / Photo courtesy of Kvell Ove Storvik, Arctic Mars Analogue Svalbard Expedition (AMASE). Rover courtesy of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology.
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