Research raises questions: Are instruments taken to Mars sensitive enough to find life?

A study in Chile's Atacama Desert has found that instruments taken to Mars on NASA's Curiosity and Perseverance missions might not be sensitive enough to find signs of life. A study led by Armando Azua-Bustos, a researcher based at Spain's Center of Astrobiology, looked at samples collected from Red Stone, a dried-up river …

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Are instruments taken to Mars sensitive enough to find life?

More woke rubbish. The instruments are supposed to ask the life's pronouns, do a stolen land acknowledgement and then be sensitive to the Martian life's feelings?

What's wrong with "we come in peace, shoot to kill" ?

[Lost Neutrino]

Re: Are instruments taken to Mars sensitive enough to find life?

"we come in peace, shoot to kill"

Where, Mars or Atacama desert in Chile?

[Lost Neutrino]

No shit, really?

"If the biosignatures can't be detected in Earth samples, ..., we should not expect these instruments to be capable of detecting evidence of life from Mars' early history," she said.

Duh...

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: No shit, really?

It's interesting research though. If true, then someone needs to be asking hard questions of NASA what testing they did on the instruments before sending them to Mars.

[Lost Neutrino]

Re: No shit, really?

Indeed, very interesting. Just that the quote was stating the obvious.

But I think the exercise in the Atacama desert is part of NASA testing the instruments before sending them off to far-flung lands... It's just that the results were not as expected/hoped for.

[Neil Barnes]

There is no substitute for boots on the ground

Guaranteed that within an hour of getting there, if life there is, someone will have a space-boot in the Martian-life poo. And be swearing about it.

[Brian Miller]

Re: There is no substitute for boots on the ground

The people wearing said boots still need appropriate instruments to analyze the rocks and soil.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: There is no substitute for boots on the ground

You do need to have a pneumatic blonde who chooses to he alone into the cargo hold/cave/basement to be the first to detect alien life

[T. F. M. Reader]

Re: There is no substitute for boots on the ground

Isn't the usual scenario that alien life is really smart and detects the pneumatic blond before it detects anyone else?

[Lost Neutrino]

Re: There is no substitute for boots on the ground

Could we stop this "pneumatic blonde" stuff, please? Essex is a nice county, too!

[TheMaskedMan]

I assume that someone did some tests BEFORE hurling these instruments off to Mars, and concluded that they had half a chance of finding whatever Martian microbes might be lurking there?

Is that research invalidated by better current understanding of the environment to be examined, or were they just being optimistic?

[Rol]

It's almost as if the parameters for the mission were defined by whatever Meccano was left over from the team bonding exercise.

[zuckzuckgo]

The cynic in me thinks this research was to promote the Mars sample return mission and secure its funding against cuts.

[Claptrap314]

Wouldn't rule that out. NASA was about politics at its inception. It's been that ever since. The science is a side effect.

Someone skeptical at the outset would ask, "If you've spent all of this money on all of these missions without even trying to see if the instruments work--why should you get a dime more?"

[Paul Kinsler]

or were they just being optimistic?

Well, I do not think it that uncommon for scientists to be optimistic when trying to make measurements - you have to start somewhere in an investigation, and do the best you can with the available (or affordable) technology. I'm reminded of early gravitational wave detectors (of the Weber type; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational-wave_observatory) which - as we now know - not even close to being capable of detecting any typical signals. But in trying to make the early ideas work, you learn what need to be improved.

[yetanotheraoc]

article raises questions

"— providing they can figure out how to send a spacecraft from Earth to Mars to collect the crucial evidence and return them to Earth for analysis by 2033."

Why do the rocks have an expiration date of 2033?

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: article raises questions

Because by then, it won't be worth the bother since SpaceX will have started their Mars Base and can bring them back on one of their scheduled return flights, along with a few tons of other interesting samples :-)

[David 164]

I think the biggest question even if they were even if they found life would NASA accept the result or accept any and all other explanations instead.