Buzzing in the science community today: not just men are from Mars — the whole human race may in fact be.
MIT, Harvard and Mass General Hospital are teaming up to find out the truth with a new DNA and RNA sequencing instrument they’re calling Search for Extra-Terrestrial Genomes (SETG).
What’s the factual evidence so far that’s propelling MIT, Harvard and MGH to invest in SETG? Here are the well-established facts in the science community:
- In the early days of the solar system, Mars and Earth were much more similar in climate than they are today
- 1 billion tons of rocks have blasted from Mars and hit Earth
- Microbes can survive the impact of these astroids hitting Earth
- There is evidence showing microbes can survive thousands of years in their interplanetary trips
- Orbital dynamics show it’s ~100x easier for rocks to travel from Mars to Earth than the other way around
- Recent Mars orbiter and rover missions show without a doubt that Mars once had lots of water
The SETG instrument, announced earlier this month at the IEEE Aerospace Conference, is a 2+ year project that aims to track if life in fact did hitch a ride from Mars over to Earth. The device will take samples, samples of sub-Martian soil using a deep drill, and researchers will then isolate microbes or microbial DNA (which can live for up to a million years). Just as DNA sequencing is done on crime scenes, the researchers will search for particular genetic sequences that are universal among all known life forms.
The Boston minds leading the project include (you can learn more about them on the SETG website):
- MIT research scientist Christopher Carr and his postdoctoral associate Clarissa Lui
- MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) head Maria Zuber
- MGH and Harvard molecular biologist and professor of genetics Gary Ruvkun
This team’s mission, taken directly from the SETG site:
“On Earth, very simple but powerful methods to detect life by the DNA polymerase chain reaction (PCR) are now standardly used. Due to massive meteoritic exchange between Earth and Mars (as well as other planets), a reasonable case can be made for life on Mars or other planets to be related to life on Earth. The sensitive technologies used to study the extremes of life on Earth can be applied to the search for life on other planets. Our team is working to develop a PCR detector for in situ analysis on other planets, most immediately, Mars.”
Whatever the results, we look forward to following the SETG team as they unearth just how far off the Mars Attacks! plot may be!
