Searching For Martian Life Underground

by Leonard David

Scientists are now eyeing the Martian underground in search for alien life as the subsurface of Mars offers a better protected habitable environment.

With improved knowledge of Mars’ geologic diversity and history along with a better appreciation of life in extreme environments here on earth, and the development of better life-detection measurement methods, scientists are hopeful that soon there will be a breakthrough in this direction.

During a recent conference last November in the National Cave and Karst Research Institute in Carlsbad, New Mexico, conference attendees agreed that the best places to look for extant Mars life are in the deep subsurface caves and in salt and ice.

To that end, Vlada Stamenković, a research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California outlined two potential Mars lander missions: Volatiles And Life: Key Reconnaissance & In-situ Exploration (VALKYRIE) and TH2OR (Transmissive H2O Reconnaissance), a small impact-lander platform that would remotely sense and study liquid subsurface groundwater via low-frequency electromagnetic waves.

Lave Tubes, Cave Entrances

Over the years, researchers have spotted pit craters on the surface of Mars. These features are locations where the roof of a lava tube has partially collapsed and created a “skylight,” as in this example below:

Researchers at the meeting pointed out that Mars-circling spacecraft have imaged numerous potential cave entrances. See below some excellent examples:

“It’s pretty clear to me that there’s much to be done to seek extant life, and certainly extinct life, in a variety of environments on Mars,” said Penny Boston, senior advisor for science integration at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California.

Kevin Webster, a research scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, agreed, “Caves are some of the most exciting environments in the search for signs of present and past life on Mars.”

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