Habitability on Early Mars and the Search for Biosignatures with the ExoMars Rover

• DOI: 10.1089/ast.2016.1533
• Publication Date: 2017-07-21T14:48:25Z
• Authors: Jorge L. Vago; Frances Westall; Pasteur Instrume...; Andrew J. Coates; Ralf Jaumann; Oleg Korablev; Valérie Ciarletti; Igor Mitrofanov; Jean-Luc Josset; Maria Cristina De...; Jean-Pierre Bibring; Fernando Rull; Fred Goesmann; Harald Steininger; Walter Goetz; William Brinckerhoff; Cyril Szopa; François Raulin; Frances Westall; Howell G. M. Edwards; Lyle G. Whyte; Alberto G. Fairén; Jean-Pierre Bibring; John Bridges; Ernst Hauber; Gian Gabriele Ori; Stephanie Werner; Damien Loizeau; Ruslan O. Kuzmin; Rebecca M. E. Wil...; Jessica Flahaut; François Forget; Jorge L. Vago; Daniel Rodionov; Oleg Korablev; Håkan Svedhem; Elliot Sefton-Nash; Gerhard Kminek; Leila Lorenzoni; Luc Joudrier; Viktor Mikhailov; Alexander Zashchi...; Sergei Alexashkin; Fabio Calantropio; Andrea Merlo; Pantelis Poulakis; Olivier Witasse; Olivier Bayle; Silvia Bayón; Uwe Meierhenrich; John Carter; Juan Manuel Garcí...; Pietro Baglioni; Albert Haldemann; Andrew J. Ball; André Debus; Robert Lindner; Frédéric Haessig; David Monteiro; Roland Trautner; Christoph Voland; Pierre Rebeyre; Duncan Goulty; Frédéric Didot; Stephen Durrant; Eric Zekri; Detlef Koschny; Andrea Toni; Gianfranco Visentin; Martin Zwick; Michel van Winnen...; Martín Azkarate; Christophe Carreau; the ExoMars Proj...
• Keywords: Landing sites; Special Collection of Papers: ExoMars Rover MissionGuest Editor: Jorge L. Vago; Astrobiology; 530; Mars rover; 01 natural sciences; 7. Clean energy; ExoMars; 620; [SDU.ASTR.IM]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Astrophysics [astro-ph]/Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysic [astro-ph.IM]; Planetengeologie; Search for life; [SDU.ASTR.IM] Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Astrophysics [astro-ph]/Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysic [astro-ph.IM]; 13. Climate action; 0103 physical sciences; Biosignatures; Biosignature; Biosignatures; ExoMars; Landing sites; Mars rover; Search for life

The second ExoMars mission will be launched in 2020 to target an ancient location interpreted to have strong potential for past habitability and for preserving physical and chemical biosignatures (as well as abiotic/prebiotic organics). The mission will deliver a lander with instruments for atmospheric and geophysical investigations and a rover tasked with searching for signs of extinct life. The ExoMars rover will be equipped with a drill to collect material from outcrops and at depth down to 2 m. This subsurface sampling capability will provide the best chance yet to gain access to chemical biosignatures. Using the powerful Pasteur payload instruments, the ExoMars science team will conduct a holistic search for traces of life and seek corroborating geological context information. Key Words: Biosignatures-ExoMars-Landing sites-Mars rover-Search for life. Astrobiology 17, 471-510.