New insights into Mars
OU Post Doctoral Research Associate, Dr Queenie Chan, is one of the authors of the paper, The Martian subsurface as a potential window into the origin of life, just published in Nature Geoscience, which considers the possibility of signs of life on Mars.
Dr Chan said: “The surface of Mars had been a hyperarid, frozen desert that had been bombarded by high-energy solar and cosmic radiation for more than a billion years. Therefore, in order to search for the origin of life, it is more logical to seek evidence of chemistry in sustained habitable settings that might have led to the origin of life in the exhumed subsurface, rather than searching directly for evolved forms of surface life. The deep subsurface — from metres to kilometres in depth — is potentially the largest, longest-lived and most stable habitable environment on Mars.”
This perspective paper reviews NASA’s aims to bring a sample back which will inform landing sites for future missions to Mars.
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China set to blast off to the far side of the Moon – here’s what it could discover
China is attempting to recover the first ever soil and rock samples from the lunar far side. The surface mission, Chang’e 6, named after the Chinese Moon goddess Chang’e, is a successor to the successful sample return mission, Chang’e 5, and a part of the Chinese lunar exploration programme.
