The Search for Life on Mars

Robotic missions to Mars have provided a wealth of telemetry for scientists, and through interdisciplinary collaboration, an increasingly clear picture of the geophysical aspects has emerged. However, in situ testing for biosignatures presents numerous challenges.

This has motivated new strategies; the objective now is to transmit not mere data streams but return physical core samples to Earth for ex situ analysis. 

The sample caching system aboard the Perseverance rover has already been deployed, and since the collection of the first specimen on Sep 1st, 2022, thirty sites have been selected, drilled, collected, and sealed for subsequent return to Earth by later missions. This approach may prove to be the definitive method for assessing biosignatures in the search for ancient microbial Life.

The Perseverance rover, during its exploration of Jezero Crater, has already provided potential evidence of ancient microbial life, but robust metabolic activity has not yet been detected.​

There are only three possibilities for microbial Life:

1. Mars never had Life

2. Mars had Life and it went extinct

3. Mars has Life today

Any one of these has profound implications for the origin of Life in the Universe and the future of Life on Earth.​

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