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NASA Supports Search for Life on Mars
on June 23, 2009
NASA is shelling out big bucks to colleges and unversities to fund technology that could help find life on Mars. Recently, the space agency awarded a team of researchers at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock $1.5 million to develop a system to examine the history and atmospheric chemisty of the red planet, the Arkansas News reports.
The team hopes to move the project forward so the system could be included on a Mars mission in the next decade. The proposed system could answer questions about the existence of life or its precursors in the solar system, atmospheric chemistry on Mars and the presence and distribution of subsurface water on Mars.
By winning a national NASA competition for its proposal “Mobile Surveying for Atmospheric and Near-Surface Gases of Biological Origin,” the Arkansas research team was among the 27 out of 50 teams NASA selected for funding.
The grant requires campus matching funds and is part of $19 million in grants NASA awarded to colleges and universities nationwide to fund research and technology.
For the complete story, visit arkansasnews.com.
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