Abzu: Uncovering the Origin of Ancient Organics on Mars
Whitepaper #368 submitted to the Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey 2023-2032. Topics: life and prebiotic organics; Mars; technology development
by Mary Beth Wilhelm, Antonio Ricco, Dorothy Oehler, Denise Buckner, Alexis Rodriguez, Paul Mahaffy, Jennifer Eigenbrode, Mark Ditzler, Jennifer G. Blank, Michel Nuevo, Pablo Sobron, Evan Eshelman, Anuscheh Nawaz, Adrian Southard, Ross H. Williams, Goro Komatsu, P. Michael Furlong, Trey Smith, Terry Fong, Jessica Koehne, Linda Jahnke, Dave Des Marais, Matthew Chin, Travis Boone, Tori Chinn, Kanch Sridhar, Thomas McClure, Trinh Hoac, Morgan J. Anderson, Leslie Radosevich, Abraham Rademacher, Lauren Friend, Spencer Baird, Thomas Evans, Jay Bookbinder, and Michael Bicay
Published onMar 18, 2021
Abzu: Uncovering the Origin of Ancient Organics on Mars
Preserved organic matter may be one of the best indicators of past life on Mars. We present Abzu, a mission concept with an improved life-detection strategy that builds on prior exploration of Mars and leverages lab-based organic biogeochemical techniques to determine the origin of organic matter within ancient Martian sedimentary deposits.
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0)
