HR: 08:00h
AN: P41D-01    [Abstracts]
TI: Analogs Environments on Earth and the Search for Organics and Life on Mars
AU: * McKay, C P
EM: cmckay@mail.arc.nasa.gov
AF: NASA Ames Research Center, Mail Stop 245-3, Moffett Field, CA 94035 United States
AB: Analog environments on Earth provide an important tool to prepare for the search for organics and life on future missions to Mars. Sites on Mars that has been proposed as targets for the search include: the martian surface soils, the fringes of the martian polar ice, liquid water aquifers that may exist in the subsurface, and deep in the ice-rich martian polar permafrost. Each of these sites has corresponding analog sites on Earth. By studying the chemistry and microbiology of these analog sites we can develop approaches and instruments for future Mars missions. The analogs on Earth are geographically diverse and range from the Antarctic to the Arctic, from low deserts to mountain tops and to the subsurface. They also range in diversity of chemical environments; including extremes of pH, salt, temperature, and water availability. Analogs also illustrate preservation mechanisms. By searching for fossil and structural remnants of microbial life here on Earth we learn how to do this on Mars.
DE: 1055 Organic and biogenic geochemistry
DE: 5400 PLANETARY SCIENCES: SOLID SURFACE PLANETS
SC: Planetary Sciences [P]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005