Search for bioorganic compounds and organisms on Mars

Abstract

A prototype of new instrument is under construction as a part of Russian Mars program to search for bioorganic compounds and microorganisms which might be frozen in rock under the places where the traces of water were found or near the poles of Mars. The proposed instrument consists of a quadrupole mass spectrometer (QMS) to detect chemical compounds and a fluorescent microscope system (FMS) to detect organisms and bioorganic compounds in bulk.