Martian terrain explored for the building blocks of life

Imperial engineers prepare to test their technology on Martian soil <em> - News</em>

Tuesday 27 May 2008
By Colin Smith

The search for conditions favourable for life on Mars has begun with the touchdown of NASA’s Phoenix spacecraft near the red planet’s icy north pole, yesterday (26 May).

Phoenix’s mission is to collect soil and dust samples to find evidence of ice particles indicating that Mars could once have had conditions sympathetic to life.

Dr Tom Pike, Dr Sanjay Vijendran and PhD student Hanna Sykulska from Imperial College London’s Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering are amongst the first people on Earth to carry out the most detailed analyses ever of Martian soil and dust samples that Phoenix will allow.

Imperial researchers have produced silicon discs which have very fine patterns etched onto their surface to hold Martian soil and dust for analysis by Phoenix’s powerful microscopy station.

The microscopy station contains an optical microscope, which uses light and a system of lenses to magnify images, and an atomic force microscope, which scans images down to a fraction of a micrometre to get the highest resolution images ever of Martian soil.

Imperial team leader, Dr Pike, says the mission represents the first chance to really analyse what is beneath the Martian surface.

Dr Tom Pike

“This is an exciting mission giving us the rare chance to be the first people to analyse water, frozen and stored beneath Mars’ surface. If seas or lakes existed on the plains in the northern hemisphere our tools should find their remnants and help us to better understand the climate cycles of Mars.”

The team has arrived at NASA’s mission control  (26 May) and are working in shifts during a 24 hour 38 minute Martian day. One of their roles is extracting the microscope images from data beamed back from Phoenix. They are analysing these images and selecting instructions to send to its excavating arm to dig for fresh soil samples.

Speaking before his departure to mission control, Dr Sanjay Vijendran said analysing the data will be a frantic time for the group.

“Because so many teams need to use the equipment on Phoenix we will only get access to the microscope station every four days out of ten. This will place quite a bit of pressure on us to rapidly download information, analyse it, and then plan the next round of daily experiments.”

The Phoenix craft.
Image supplied by NASA

Imperial PhD student, Hanna Sykulska, will be one of the youngest team members working on the NASA mission. The 26-year-old said she was excited to take part. She added:

“When Phoenix lands it will be celebrating but very quickly we will have to get our heads down and start the hard work. We will be the first people on Earth to see such high resolution images of Martian soil. It is a real honour to be part of this mission.”

The team are staying on the outskirts of the Arizona Desert and are carrying out their work at mission control based at the University of Arizona.

The craft  arrived on Mars’ northern hemisphere at 00.53 BST on the 26 May after a ten month journey following its launch in August 2007.

The mission is planned for a 90 day period but could be extended for a further 60 days depending on Phoenix’s power supply, which relies on solar panels to convert sunlight into energy from the low sun of the Martian arctic.