Autonomous Robot Finds Life in Atacama Desert

Neil Halelamien writes "Nature and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette report that a NASA-funded "robotic astrobiologist" named Zoë (a successor to the Hyperion rover) has found life in Chile's Atacama desert. The Atacama is the Earth's driest desert, with steep slopes and rugged terrain. This is the first robot to remotely detect life, finding bacteria (and lichens, in the less dry areas) by using a fluorescent imager. The robot could also spray special dyes to detect life signatures like DNA, protein, lipids, and carbohydrates. Zoë's next assignment will be to autonomously sample soil over 50 kilometers of the Atacama. The Atacama desert is thought to be similar to Mars; instruments similar to those used on the 1970s Viking missions have previously failed to detect life there."

Contamination probably

[Eternally optimistic (822953)]

Most likely, the researchers who put the robot in the desert didn't wash their feet properly.

Re:Contamination probably

[gl4ss (559668)]

they could have probably detected the organisms by being on site. the point is, that vikings instruments weren't able to do the same and they knew that there would be signs of life over there. it's not contamination they brought themselfs.

(you should be modded funny, but were already modded with interesting....)

1cm/year water due to fog

[aepervius (535155)]

Moisture is probably more than enough to sustain lichen and bacteria colony. Especially that this does not get that hot (link from article say it all) and part are even snowy due to altitude. Actually it may be the driest desert but not the hotest. So getting water might be a problem but eveaporation mightnot be the biggest problem. Heck, even in sahara, where you have mostly sand, you have life.

Re:Contamination probably

[Wavicle (181176)]

The Atacama receives a very small amount of water in the form of fog or dew. Although the Atacama is very dry, it is not very warm. Something like a million people live in the Atacama. In some particularly dry spots, they live from the water collected by giant "fog collectors" [www.exn.ca].

How deep can it drill?

[by Anonymous Coward]

A lot of the serious speculation that I have read is that life may exist well under the surface.

how dry is dry?

[MC68000 (825546)]

Just an interesting tidbit, it has not rained in the Atacama desert for 100s of years.

http://www.extremescience.com/DriestPlace.htm

Re:how dry is dry?

[double-oh three (688874)]

Huh? Even the site you linked says it does rain from time to time, just rarely.

"The annual rainfall (or lack of it) defines a desert, but that doesn't mean that it never rains in Atacama. "

IANABiologist

[thedustbustr (848311)]

Why would life on mars necessarily be DNA-based, and why would protiens and lipids nessarily evolve if life evolves? Certainly, other methods of reproduction may have evolved.

Re:IANABiologist

[Toresica (788403)]

Sure, we might not recognise life if we find it. But we know DNA-based life works - why not look for it?

I've heard speculation that the first microbes might have come to Earth from Mars - if so, it would likely be somewhat similar to life here.

Re:IANABiologist

[KitFox (712780)]

Why would life on mars necessarily be DNA-based, and why would protiens and lipids nessarily evolve if life evolves? Certainly, other methods of reproduction may have evolved.

I actually have to agree with this observation completely. If we consider that our definition of life seems to include specific chemicals and processes and results, and that we really have no other definitions of life, then I suppose that we have no other choice but to see in tunnel vision.

The issue I think is that perhaps we have too strict a definition of "what is necesary for life". Consider: With the recent article [slashdot.org] on self-replicating rapid prototypers, how far are we away from the possibility of machines that can consume raw materials, process them to create power and more complex materials, and possibly reproduce new copies of themselves? That fits the most basic definition of 'life' already. But there's no DNA, or protiens, or any other such things involved.

Maybe we need to start revising our views on what constitutes "signs of life" if we want to have accurate findings. Either that or realize that we can only search for "Life as we know it" specifically.

Re:IANABiologist

[flyingsquid (813711)]

Why would life on mars necessarily be DNA-based, and why would protiens and lipids nessarily evolve if life evolves? Certainly, other methods of reproduction may have evolved.

One possibility is that the Martian life and Earth life are related. If rocks can be blown off the surface of Mars and land here- and presumably, vice-versa- it's quite possible that in the early days around 3-4 billion years ago, impact ejecta formed a sort of interplanetary shuttle service for microbes. If Mars became habitable before Earth, it's even possible life actually evolved there, and then was seeded here.

Answers!

[RobertTaylor (444958)]

The big question is will they find life on Earth?

Re:Answers!

[mikael (484)]

They haven't studied cats or dolphins enough yet to figure it out. ;)


Whenever I run the various OpenGL demos on my computer, it's always funny to see one of our cats lift up a paw and try and "catch" the rotating object (eg torus) or even just the cursor. The most interesting reaction was when 'glgears' was running, and I couldn't understand why my cat kept looking at the power button. Then I realized it was essentially the symbol of the green gear.

Now we've found life on Earth...

[by Anonymous Coward]

...we can start looking for intelligent beings.

Really?! Life on Earth?!

[by Anonymous Coward]

I can't believe it.. must be a software error...

How much does this cost?

[sonsonete (473442)]

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know how much was spent to create this robot? Or, how big is it (the pictures make it look small, but they can be deceiving)? I'm just curious about the likelihood of devices like this going to Mars any time soon.

Autonomous robot takes pride in it's work...

[kaleco (801384)]

...demands pay rise and more more holidays.

homegrown

[Doc Ruby (173196)]

Good thing they didn't demo the device before Congress: there's certainly no intelligent life to detect there.

Life on mars bit

[PxM (855264)]

It should be noted that the claim about whether life on Mars exists is not without contrevery. Levin contends [spherix.com] that the Viking probes did detect evidence of life on Mars based on biochemical signatures. This past evidence is now supported by the belief that Mars might have an organic methane source. There is also some evidence that Viking detected a circadian rhythm, but like all conclusions draw on such a limited data set, there are a lot of interpretations.

--
Want a free iPod? [freeipods.com]
Or try a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox. [freegamingsystems.com] (you only need 4 referrals)
Wired article as proof [wired.com]

Of course they found life...

[tinrobot (314936)]

Because they went out on a Saturday night.

During the week, the Atacama desert is really dead.

Why do we need a rover for this?

[Red_Icculus (866366)]

We should send Google to search for life on Mars.

In related news

[by Anonymous Coward]

"...The robot could also spray special dyes to detect life signatures like DNA, protein, lipids, and carbohydrates..."

In related news, Atacama tribe sues NASA for building spray-painting robot, spoiling natural habitat of ancient desert. NASA plans bigger robot equipped with boom box and head scarf to verify once and for all that life does not exist there. "Instead of trying to find life, we figured we just keep making our robots more and more annoying until some alien shows up with a ray gun."

I've been there

[hey! (33014)]

It is incredibly dry.Along the coast, there is some very sparse plant life sustained by camachaca -- a mist that blows in off the sea for a few hours in the morning. Except at a few places like Pan de Azucar national park the camachaca doesn't reach very far inland, so plant life drops of dramatically within a km of the coast. A brief hike inland brings you to a blasted, arid, and apprenlty sterile moonscape. I liked to jog inland in the cool, bright and dry early morning.

If you're anywhere near habitation, it's not unusual to see bits of garbage and bits of toilet paper from campers blowing around -- without moisture to break it down it hangs around forever. Archaeologists have found Inca textiles that had been dropped in the Atacama desert that after 500 year were in nearly perfect condition.

When I was there, it had been over five years since the last rainfall. Yet the following year, they had a small rain storm. My relatives, who were doing research there, said that within days the desert was completely covered with tiny, colorful flowers. My sister in law said that if you walked among them, the fragence was so overpoweringly sweet it made you retch. And of couse this display wasn't intended for humans -- it was for the vast clouds of insects that emerged from the apparently sterile soil to pollinate the flowers.

Obviously, there is a tremendous amount of life latent in the soil. There is a huge difference between a few inches of rain per decade and no rain at all.

Re:Lichens?

[Timesprout (579035)]

Or how President Bush likes to refer to the citizens of Lichtenstein.

Re:second look at life on Mars?

[mbrother (739193)]

Yes, you're right that the Viking experiments on Mars were not unanimous about not detecting life. At least one of them did, but in the absence of the other experiments supporting the result, consensus drifted toward "unusual chemistry" to explain it. But that's not a complete consensus by any means. Here's one link about on the pro-life side: http://mars.spherix.com/