Detecting vital signs on Mars

Published: 1-Jul-2002
Recruitment


The mission to Mars has received a further boost from biomedical research charity The Wellcome Trust, which has agreed to help finance a vital piece of equipment on board Beagle 2 and could lead to the development of new medical instruments.

The organisation is providing £2.6m (€4m) to pay for the construction of a miniaturised version of a mass spectrometer and gas analysis package to identify and determine the chemical composition of samples. If the resulting information reveals that elemental carbon has undergone biological processing, it could point to some form of life having been on Mars. The package can also detect trace gases in the atmosphere which are the tell-tale signs of current life.

The funds will allow the team to explore possible medical uses and develop versions of the instrumentation for clinical applications.

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