This site may earn chapter commissions from the links on this page. Terms of utilise.

Mars-2020

The Curiosity rover has been trundling around the surface of Mars for more four years at present. In that fourth dimension, it has examined Martian rocks, covered more ground than any past rover, and snapped a few neat selfies along the way. NASA is already planning its side by side rover mission to the Red Planet, which should launch in 2020. Researchers from MIT may accept found a way for that rover to use one of its instruments to have more accurate readings on samples that could aid united states of america find the remnants of ancient Martian life.

The 2020 rover volition include an instrument chosen SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals). We tin can only hope they are equally clever in naming the rover itself—"the 2020 rover" lacks flair. SHERLOC uses Raman spectroscopy to analyse the composition of a sample. This procedure uses a laser to examine the vibration of atoms and molecules without destroying them like a mass spectrometer would.

The problem with Raman spectroscopy has e'er been in determining the origin of a molecule. You can scan two organic samples and come away knowing that they contain carbon in 1 form or some other, but how did it go at that place? A traditional Raman spectrum tin't tell you if a lump of carbon came from a space stone burning up in the temper or from biological origins. However, MIT researcher Nicola Ferralis thinks she'southward institute a way.

In that location are two peaks in Raman spec information — one of these peaks known as the D ring has variations that correlate with the location of carbon atoms. Ferralis says that examining the design of these small peaks can also reveal the ratio of hydrogen to carbon in a sample. College levels of hydrogen point it has undergone less thermal exposure and is more likely to have biological origins.

MIT-Detecting-Carbon-2

Ferralis validated this technique by using samples with known levels of hydrogen, as adamant past much more than intensive techniques. The Raman method developed at MIT matched the known ratios very well. The team fifty-fifty scanned a microscopic fossil (above) to meet if the hypothesis of biological origins held up. There is usually too picayune carbon left in fossils to be detected by common ways, merely the Raman spec reported higher levels of hydrogen in the fossil than in the surrounding stone. That strongly suggests that it is biological in origin.

If the 2020 rover is able to use SHERLOC to assess hydrogen/carbon ratios, it could cipher in on the well-nigh interesting samples for farther study. One of the 2020 rover's missions will be to shop samples on the surface of Mars until they can be collected by a future mission and returned to World. This technique could help NASA determine which samples deserve a place in the rover'due south storage bin.