JPL director: Curiosity may have found organic, not biological molecules

Re:JPL director: Curiosity may have found organic, not biolo... by Daniel_Newby on Wednesday November 28, 2012 @11:39AM (#4843396)

> The main problem is that there is no distinction between organic and biological molecules, so you can't make a sensor that distinguishes them.

For a given molecule, life tends to strongly prefer either the left-handed or right-handed version.

Curiosity's gas chromatograph can tell them apart. If it finds a strong handedness preference for several chemicals, then Mars almost certainly has life.

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Re:JPL director: Curiosity may have found organic, not biolo... by jacquesm on Thursday November 29, 2012 @02:11AM (#4846591)

I think you may be confusing liquid chromatography and gas chromatography, gas chromatography afaik can't distinguish between the left handed and the right handed form of a molecule but liquid chromatography mass spectrometry can (and that's not the most sensitive / efficient way to do it either).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chirality

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Re:JPL director: Curiosity may have found organic, not biolo... by Daniel_Newby on Thursday November 29, 2012 @06:55AM (#4847235)

One of the GC columns has a chiral stationary phase. Chromotography works whether the carrier fluid is a liquid or a gas. The real problem with gas chromotography is that amino acids have a low vapor pressure. They seem to be chemically functionalizing them to improve the volatility.

http://msl-scicorner.jpl.nasa.gov/Instruments/SAM/

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