Scientists talk about a new way to search for life on Mars
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Canadian scientists from the University of Aberdeen have created innovative technology to search for the smallest signs of life on Mars. Their research was published in the scientific journal Scientific Reports.
A special soil testing procedure can detect and identify DNA as small as two picograms, or two trillionths of a gram. By comparison, the genome of one hummingbird cell contains one picogram of DNA. This method is based on advanced genetic sequencing technology.
Professor Javier Martin-Torres, the leader of this scientific work, emphasized that although the likelihood of microbial life on Mars today is small, detecting it requires working with extremely small volumes of samples. This is where the size and power of the equipment used in space exploration becomes critical.
Scientists also plan to use this new technology to search for signs of life in some of the Earth’s most extreme climate zones, including polar regions and deserts. In addition, the detection of even the smallest biological particles can be useful in the fields of medicine, chemistry and pharmacology, where absolute sterility is required.
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