Scientists have confirmed that the Rosalind Franklin rover's MOMA instrument can distinguish mirror-image versions of two stable organic molecules that may preserve evidence of past life on Mars. The test also revealed unexpected contamination in samples from the Murchison meteorite.
Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, the University of Göttingen, and Côte d'Azur University tested replicas of the MOMA capillary tubes. They successfully separated the chiral forms of pristane and phytane, molecules that could serve as biosignatures if life once existed on the red planet.
The Rosalind Franklin rover is scheduled to begin operations on Mars in 2030 as part of the European Space Agency's ExoMars mission. MOMA will heat rock samples and analyze released gases to detect imbalances between mirror-image molecules that living systems typically produce in unequal amounts.
Testing on the Murchison meteorite, which fell in Australia in 1969, showed equal amounts of both mirror-image versions of the molecules. Scientists attributed this pattern to petroleum-based aerosol pollutants encountered during the meteorite's passage through Earth's atmosphere rather than biological contamination on the ground.
"If life once existed on Mars, then molecules like pristane and phytane represent important molecular biosignatures that could have survived to this day," said lead author Guillaume Leseigneur of the Max Planck Institute.