New Mexico Tech wants to see what happens when bacteria fly. Scientists at the university are testing bacteria-filled rocks to see if the organisms can survive the extreme pressures and temperatures involved in a meteor impact on another planet that might send them to Earth. If the bacteria prove hardy, it might mean that life could be widespread across the universe. “People kind of thought of this as crazy science fiction in the past, until we found this meteorite from Mars and discovered evidence of life in it in the 1990s,” said Eileen Ryan, a research scientist at Tech’s Magdalena Ridge Observatory Project. “Studying these rocks has implications for how we view ourselves and our place in the universe. It’s an exciting idea that we’re not alone.”
New Mexico gadget hints at water on Red Planet The Albuquerque Tribune
When the Mars Observer spacecraft disappeared into the cold void of space nine years ago, it broke Bill Feldman’s heart. Feldman, 62, a Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist, had worked since 1984 to develop an instrument for the spacecraft called a neutron spectrometer. There was no room to fit the instrument, which is smaller than a shoe box and weighs about 8 pounds, on subsequent missions to the planet until the Mars Odyssey spacecraft. It took nearly a decade, but Feldman finally got a second chance with Odyssey, which was launched in early 2001 and successfully reached orbit in October. A few months ago, the instrument returned some surprising results – including showing that hydrogen, which many think indicates water, is more abundant on Mars than previously believed.