organic-detection instrument tagged posts

New Instrument could search for Signatures of Life on Mars

This artist’s rendition shows how a proposed laser-fluorescence instrument could operate on Mars.

This artist’s rendition shows how a proposed laser-fluorescence instrument could operate on Mars. Credits: NASA

A sensing technique that the U.S. military currently uses to remotely monitor the air to detect potentially life-threatening chemicals, toxins, and pathogens has inspired a new instrument that could “sniff” for life on Mars and other targets in the solar system—the Bio-Indicator Lidar Instrument, or BILI. Branimir Blagojevic, a NASA technologist at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, formerly worked for a company that developed the sensor...

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