Badania środowisk ziemskich podobnych marsjańskim pomoże opracować detektory do wykrywania ewentualnych śladów życia na Marsie.
Peter Edwards, a PhD student from the University's Department of Physics and Astronomy, is part of a team of researchers at the University of Leicester currently investigating how to optimise the performance of the camera by studying various types of samples, recovered from extreme environments on Earth.
Peter's research involves preparing for the operation of the instrument by looking at the information obtained from previous Mars rovers (such as Curiosity) and determining the best way to operate the detector system that is being developed for the spectrometer.
As part of this research, Peter has travelled to North Yorkshire to explore the Boulby salt mine, which stretches a kilometre down and out under the North Sea.
Peter explained: "Parts of Mars are quite similar to the salty environment deep underground at Boulby. In these areas we see polygons marked out in the ground similar in some ways to the Giants Causeway on Mars. Underground we can see these same polygons on the ceiling and walls of tunnels.
"Salty environments are typically hostile to life but certain types of micro-organisms can adapt to these hostile conditions, we call these halophiles. By investigating the difference between the dark outer edges of these polygons compared with the lighter inside we can work out where to direct rovers on Mars when searching for life in these similar conditions.
http://phys.org/news/2016-09-yorkshire-salt-martian-life.html