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Precursor To 'Star Trek' Scanner Identifies Organic Matter





	June 20 - Retro Review: Disaster Troi must take command of the ship while Picard struggles to work with three children and Worf delivers Keiko's baby. June 6 - Retro Review: Silicon Avatar A scientist pursuing the Crystalline Entity discovers that Data's brain holds her son's memories. May 30 - Retro Review: Ensign Ro A court-martialed Starfleet officer from occupied Bajor is sent to help locate a terrorist leader. May 23 - Retro Review: Darmok Picard is exiled with the leader of an alien race who speaks in incomprehensible metaphors. May 15 - Retro Review: Redemption, Part Two Picard discovers that Tasha Yar's Romulan daughter is influencing the Klingon civil war. May 9 - Retro Review: Redemption, Part One When Picard is asked as Arbiter of Succession to oversee Gowron's installation, Worf resigns from Starfleet to fight against the Duras family. May 2 - Retro Review: In Theory Data creates a romantic subroutine to experiment with love. Apr 24 - Retro Review: The Mind's Eye LaForge is kidnapped and altered by Romulans to take part in an assassination plot against a Klingon governor. Apr 17 - Retro Review: The Host Crusher falls in love with a Trill, only to discover that his real personality exists in a small symbiont living inside his body. Apr 11 - Retro Review: Half a Life A visiting scientist falls in love with Lwaxana Troi, then reveals that he is expected to commit ritual suicide. Mar 28 - Retro Review: The Drumhead A famous Starfleet admiral leads a hunt for a traitor aboard the Enterprise. Mar 20 - Retro Review: Qpid In the middle of an archaeology conference, Q turns Picard and crew into Robin Hood and his merry men. Mar 13 - Retro Review: The Nth Degree After an encounter with an alien probe, Lieutenant Barclay develops super-human intelligence. Mar 6 - Retro Review: Identity Crisis LaForge learns that every officer on an away mission to Tarchannen Three years earlier has begun to transform. Feb 28 - Retro Review: Night Terrors The crew is trapped in a rift in space where lack of dreams causes psychosis.

By T'Bonz
June 25, 2008 - 11:09 PM

An ultraviolet scanner that identifies organic matter in soils by reacting with a certain chemical compound is being tested and may be used on a future Mars lander or rover to search for life.

As reported by Internetnews.com, the ultraviolet light reacts with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which may be one of the earliest forms of organic material in the universe, being found on both comets and meteorites. PAHs molecules fluoresce when excited by UV light.

"Since PAHs are found on meteorites, we would expect some of that material to fall from space onto the surface of Mars," said Martin Fisk, Professor of Marine Geology at Oregon State University, as reported by Oregon State University. "But we also know the surface is bombarded by ultraviolet light and cosmic rays, which would destroy organic matter. Computer simulations, including those carried out at University College London, suggest that the organic material is protected under the surface of Mars, down below a meter or so, and can be brought up via a drill and identified."

The scanner needs to be light enough to be flown and strong enough to survive the minus-120 degree Celsius temperatures of the Martian night. If these issues can be solved, perhaps the scanner will be part of the European Space Agency's ExoMars mission slated for 2013 that will be looking for evidence of life on Mars.

To read more, head to the articles located here and here.

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