Recently the entire world became more curious about Mars. Everyday we receive a bunch of self portraits of The car sized probe curiosity. Specially equipped with a Wall-E style camera head, Curiosity went to Mars trying to solve a 30 years discussion: is there life in Mars right now?
Everything started with a experiment in which radioactive water was put in contact with Martian soil by the Viking probe in the 80's. The experiment detected radioactive CO2, that could only come from microorganisms utilizing the radioactive water in their metabolism. However, the gas chromatography couldn't detect any organic molecule in soil, that's a paradox.
This time, curiosity has a unique arsenal of analytic techniques to analyse air and soil. Beginning with highly sensitive quadrupole mas spectrometers and series of chromatographic columns able to separate permanent gases, short organic chains and aminoacids derivatives.
The SAM sample analysis at Mars, counts with a highly sensitive mass spectrometer and thermal conductivity detector, so sensitive as a bench top earth equipment, the mass spectrometer detects up to 1 ppb of organics.
Strangely, most of equipment in SAM came from French research facilities like the Laboratoire Inter-Universitaire des Systemes Atmospheriques (LISA). No prejudice intended to French chromatographers but just never imagined that NASA would outsource analytical instruments.
I feel strangely proud in read that all this technologies are kind very know and I even made use of some of them. like the chemical derivatization. (Don't ask me why but NASA/LISA prefer MTBSTFA rather than BSTFA)
Take a look of the actual SAM photos and some technical (and geek) information:
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| Sample carousel with metal and quartz cups for pyrolysis and wet chemistry experiments |
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| Sample carousel equipped with all Quartz cup. Some of them carry standard mix for on-site calibration purposes |
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| Capillary columns used in SAM. For a list on Stationary phases see table 1. |
Table 1
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| Columns used in SAM module on Curiosity probe. |
Table 2
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| Standards in glass cell used for test performance and for mass spectrometer calibration |
Source:
Mahaffy et al,
Space Sci Rev (2012) 170:401–478
http://www.geochemsoc.org/publications/geochemicalnews/gn141oct09/sampleanalysisatmars.htm
http://fingerprintsoflife.pbworks.com/f/cabane2004.pdf
http://www.springerlink.com/content/p26510688kg4q808/
http://www.astrobio.net/exclusive/2765/making-sense-of-mars-methane
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