INSTRUMENTS designed to look for signs of life on Mars have proven their worth here on Earth by finding evidence of living and fossilised microbes in a frozen Arctic volcano.
The discovery of “a rare and complex microbial community” in the ice was reported by Hans Amundsen of the University of Oslo, Norway, and colleagues who have been studying the volcano Sverrefjell on the Arctic island of Spitsbergen.
The instruments are being designed for a future mission to look for signs of life in similar habitats on Mars. They include a device fitted with chips that can detect a range…
