Jan 9 2007
From The Space Library
NASA awarded Scripps Institution of Oceanography a grant valued at US$750,000, to develop an instrument to detect signs of biological compounds on Mars. European Space Agency (ESA) selected the Urey Mars Organic and Oxidant Detector (Urey), named for the late Nobel Laureate, Harold C. Urey, to fly aboard its ExoMars rover mission in 2013. Jeffrey L. Bada, Lead Investigator on the Urey team and Director of the NASA Specialized Center of Research and Training in Exobiology at Scripps, explained that Urey would be the first instrument with the capacity to detect amino acids, as well as other possible biomolecules. To search for trace levels of amino acids and for some components of DNA and RNA, Urey would heat and analyze spoon-sized amounts of Martian soil, collected from 2 meters (6.6 feet) beneath Mars’s surface. Urey would then trap and condense any molecules released from the heated soil and probe them with a laser. If the laser detected amino acids in the soil, another instrument, developed at the University of California at Berkeley, would examine the amino-acid composition to determine whether the molecules came from biological or nonbiological sources.
Scripps Institution of Oceanography, “NASA Funds Scripps Instrument for Probing for Life on Mars: Detector To Hunt for Organic Molecules During Proposed 2013 Mission,” Scripps News, 9 January 2007, http://scrippsnews.ucsd.edu/Releases/?releaseID=768 (accessed 9 November 2009).
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