Current and Future Instrumentation for the Detection and Identification of Signatures of Life on Mars and Beyond

Editors

Andreas Riedo

University of Bern

Peter Wurz

University of Bern

Pascale Ehrenfreund

George Washington University

Impact

OCEANS example data from analysis of mixtures of amino acids, carboxylic acids, and inorganic salts in Europa analog samples using EMILI-proxy commercial CE instrumentation and ground-support mass spectrometer. Numbered peaks in fluorescence at 50 nM (A), mass spectrometry at 50 μM (B), cation conductivity at 100 μM (C), and anion conductivity at 100 μM (D) indicate separated compounds in grouped categories (individual labels not shown for simplicity). Astrobiologically-important amino acids indicated (1–13) in CE-LIF spectrum (A) follow those of Creamer et al. (2017).

Original Research

13 January 2022

Europan Molecular Indicators of Life Investigation (EMILI) for a Future Europa Lander Mission

William B. Brinckerhoff

, 27 more and

Kris Zacny

14,808 views

13 citations

Technology and Code

08 October 2021

Contamination Control for Ultra-Sensitive Life-Detection Missions

Jennifer L. Eigenbrode

, 9 more and

Christopher McKay

3,411 views

10 citations

Original Research

05 November 2021

Laser Ablation Ionization Mass Spectrometry: A Space Prototype System for In Situ Sulphur Isotope Fractionation Analysis on Planetary Surfaces

Andreas Riedo

, 7 more and

Pascale Ehrenfreund

3,290 views

9 citations

Original Research

03 May 2022

High Mass Resolution fs-LIMS Imaging and Manifold Learning Reveal Insight Into Chemical Diversity of the 1.88 Ga Gunflint Chert

Rustam A. Lukmanov

, 9 more and

Peter Wurz

2,020 views

5 citations

Original Research

01 September 2022

A multi-modal volumetric microscope with automated sample handling for surveying microbial life in liquid samples

Taewoo Kim

, 9 more and

Jay Nadeau

1,587 views

2 citations

Review

07 October 2021

Planetary Mass Spectrometry for Agnostic Life Detection in the Solar System

Luoth Chou

, 13 more and

Sarah Stewart Johnson

13,100 views

32 citations

(A) Power consumption of the Struers Secotom 10 disc saw versus disc rotation speed. (B–D) Power consumption versus time for various samples and parameters: (B) chert sample, water on, vd = 900 rpm and vs = 0.095 mm s−1 (in blue), and vd = 900 rpm and vs = 0.05 mm s−1 (in red), (C) komatiite sample, water off, vd = 900 rpm and vs = 0.05 mm s−1, (D) basalt sample, water off, vd = 300 rpm and vs = 0.01 mm s−1.

Original Research

30 September 2021

LithoSpace: An Idea for an Automated System for in situ Petrographic Thin Section Preparation on Mars and Other Extraterrestrial Rocky Bodies

Frédéric Foucher

, 11 more and

Frances Westall

5,087 views

3 citations

Review

27 July 2021

Miniaturised Instrumentation for the Detection of Biosignatures in Ocean Worlds of the Solar System

Julian Chela-Flores

2,033 views

3 citations

Open for submission

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Deadline

30 June 2025

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