A sedan-sized rover named Curiosity will ascend to Mars next week to see if life has, or ever could, exist there.
Scientists want to search for signs other than the ancient presence of water to assess whether Mars does, or did, support biology.
“We want to know everything we can about the minerals, the carbon-based compounds, the temperatures, the chemistry of the micro-environments we look at,” said Pamela Conrad of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and an investigator for the Sample Analysis at Mars instruments on Curiosity. By comparing data with potentially similar environments on Earth, the team hopes to find clues about potential livability at the sample site.
