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Projects
BOLD Mission to Mars |
| Project Leader: D. Schulze-Makuch |
Mars: Hydrothermal Fluids and the Search for Biomarkers |
| Project Leader: C. Fan |
Modeling the Rise of Cyanobacteria in Earth’s early History |
| Project Leader: J. Wu |
Pavilion Lake Research Project, Canada |
| Project Leader: D. Lim |
Pitch Lake Project, a Natural Asphalt Lake in Trinidad and Tobago |
| Project Leader: D. Schulze-Makuch |
TANDEM Mission to Titan and Enceladus |
| Project Leader: A. Coustenis |
Study of Mission Concepts in Collaboration with
the Visual and Autonomous Exploration Systems Research Laboratory at Caltech |
| Project Leader: W. Fink |
News
Mars Phoenix mission to land on Mars 25 May 2008 and we will test for
Evidence of Life.
(In press at Astrobiology)
Investigators: Dirk Schulze-Makuch,
Carol Turse, Joop M. Houtkooper, and
Christopher P. McKay
Abstract
Since Viking has conducted its life detection experiments on Mars, many
missions have enhanced our knowledge about the environmental conditions
on the Red Planet. However, the Martian surface chemistry and the Viking
lander results remain puzzling. Non-biological explanations that favor
a strong inorganic oxidant are currently favored (e.g., Mancinelli, 1989;
Plumb et al.,1989; Quinn and Zent, 1999; Klein, 1999, Yen et al., 2000),
but problems remain regarding the life time, source, and abundance of
that oxidant to account for the Viking observations (Zent and McKay,
1994). Alternatively, a hypothesis favoring the biological origin of
a strong oxidizer has recently been advanced (Houtkooper and Schulze-Makuch,
2007). Here, we report about laboratory experiments that simulate the
experiments to be conducted by the Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer (TEGA)
instrument of the Phoenix lander, which is to descend on Mars in May
2008. Our experiments provide a baseline for an unbiased test for chemical
versus biological responses, which can be applied at the time the Phoenix
Lander transmits its first results from the Martian surface.
People
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Directions/Contacts
| Physical Location: | Webster Hall 1132 (currently) Washington State University Pullman, WA 99164, USA Tel.: (509)-335-4812 (Carol Turse) or Dirk Schulze-Makuch (509)-335-1180 |
| Future Location: | 101 LJ Smith Hall |
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