Author: Erin Gibbons

Erin is pursuing a PhD in Earth & Planetary Science at McGill University, Canada. She studies the fossilization of microbial lifeforms on Earth to help understand where chemical evidence of life may be preserved on Mars. She is also a contributing scientist to the NASA Perseverance Mission, which is currently seeking signs of life in Jezero Crater on Mars. On the rover, Erin helps operate the SuperCam instrument, a remote-sensing instrument that uses optical measurements and laser spectroscopy to determine the composition of rocks.

February 17, 2022February 17, 2022

Martian Past Revealed by New Analysis of 4 Billion-year-old Meteorite

Paper: Organic synthesis associated with serpentinization and carbonation on early Mars

Authors: Steele A, Benning LG, Wirth R, Schreiber A, Araki T, McCubbin FM, Fries MD, Nittler LR, Wang J, Hallis LJ, and Conrad PG.

The discovery of organic carbon in Martian meteorites has fueled scientific debates for more than four decades. Could these molecules be the chemical residue of Martian life?

August 19, 2021August 20, 2021

The Search for Life on Mars Begins on Earth

Self portrait of NASA's Curiosity rover. Curiosity is currently climbing Moount Sharp, which can be seen rising on the right-hand side of the image, seeking signs that Mars have been a habitable planet in the past.

Article: Fatty Acid Preservation in Modern and Relict Hot-Spring Deposits in Iceland, with Implications for Organics Detection on Mars

Authors: Williams, Amy J., Kathleen L. Craft, Maëva Millan, Sarah Stewart Johnson, Christine A. Knudson, Marisol Juarez Rivera, Amy C. McAdam, Dominique Tobler, and John Roma Skok.

The quest to find signs of life on Mars is one of the greatest scientific challenges of our time. For some researchers, the quest is a chemical one. A search for the biomolecular remains of life that may have lived when Mars was warmer and wetter billions of years ago. However, finding and recognizing molecular fossils is no easy task, even for a rover as sophisticated as Curiosity. Now, new research from Dr. Amy Williams and her colleagues provides fresh insights into where Mars rovers should look for these fossils, what the signatures may look like, and a simple procedure for how to detect them.