Did Earth-Mars meteoritic exchange spread microbial life?
DNA-based life detection for Mars, with human spaceflight applications. C.E. Carr1, M.T. Zuber1, and G. Ruvkun2,3 1Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 2Department of Genetics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA., 3Department of Molecular Biology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA On Earth, the DNA-based polymerase chain reaction (PCR) provides a simple, standard, and powerful method to detect life. A soil sample from an extreme environment can be surveyed for the signature of life, a DNA fragment of a gene that is universal to life on Earth, in less than 2 hours in any standard molecular biology laboratory. Due to massive meteoritic exchange between Earth and Mars, a reasonable case can be made for life on Mars to be related to life on Earth. We are developing a PCR detector for in situ analysis on other planets, most immediately, Mars. If present, even low levels of microbial life on Mars could be detec
