Mars Extant Life: What's Next? Conference Report
Mars Extant Life: What's Next? Conference Report
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DOI：
10.1089/ast.2020.2237
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发表时间：
2020-05-28
期刊：
影响因子：
4.2
通讯作者：
Xu, J.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Carrier, B. L.;Beaty, D. W.;Xu, J.
2019年11月5-8日，《火星现存生命：下一步是什么？会议在新墨西哥州的卡尔斯巴德召开。这次会议聚集了一群积极发表与宜居性和天体生物学相关学科的专家。主要结论如下：相当一部分与会者得出结论，火星上存在本土微生物生命的可能性是现实的。会议的一个强有力的主题是，寻找火星现存生命的关键在于识别和探索避难所(绿洲)，那里的条件无论是永久性的还是间歇性的明显比平均水平更宜居。根据我们对火星的现有知识，与会者强调了四个可能的火星避难所(没有按优先顺序列出)：洞穴、地下深处、冰川和盐分。会议小组并未试图就这些候选环境的优先次序达成协商一致，而是认为，合理的优先次序排列将需要一个未来的竞争性进程。在这些候选环境的背景下，我们确定了各种可以缩小搜索空间的地质搜索策略。此外，我们总结了一些测量技术，可以用来检测现存生命的证据(如果存在)。同样，确定这些衡量技术的轻重缓急不在会议的讨论范围之内--最好留给竞争性进程。我们特别注意到，如果将样品送回地球，可以实施的探测方法的数量和灵敏度大大超过了可以在火星使用的方法。最后，可以从陆地实验室和模拟野外地点进行的实验和理论建模中获得指导现有生命搜索过程的重要经验教训。
On November 5-8, 2019, the "Mars Extant Life: What's Next?" conference was convened in Carlsbad, New Mexico. The conference gathered a community of actively publishing experts in disciplines related to habitability and astrobiology. Primary conclusions are as follows: A significant subset of conference attendees concluded that there is a realistic possibility that Mars hosts indigenous microbial life. A powerful theme that permeated the conference is that the key to the search for martian extant life lies in identifying and exploring refugia ("oases"), where conditions are either permanently or episodically significantly more hospitable than average. Based on our existing knowledge of Mars, conference participants highlighted four potential martian refugium (not listed in priority order): Caves, Deep Subsurface, Ices, and Salts. The conference group did not attempt to reach a consensus prioritization of these candidate environments, but instead felt that a defensible prioritization would require a future competitive process. Within the context of these candidate environments, we identified a variety of geological search strategies that could narrow the search space. Additionally, we summarized a number of measurement techniques that could be used to detect evidence of extant life (if present). Again, it was not within the scope of the conference to prioritize these measurement techniques-that is best left for the competitive process. We specifically note that the number and sensitivity of detection methods that could be implemented if samples were returned to Earth greatly exceed the methodologies that could be used at Mars. Finally, important lessons to guide extant life search processes can be derived both from experiments carried out in terrestrial laboratories and analog field sites and from theoretical modeling.