Life On Mars

Science fiction is filled with examples of weird and wonderful lifeforms from other planets. In particular, the idea of Martians dates back at least as far as 1897, when HG Well's The War of the Worlds was first published. Alongside this interest in fictional aliens, the search for actual Martian life will take its next step this summer - between 30 July and 15 August - when NASA plans to launch its next mission to Mars, the Rover Perseverance.¹

Looking for life on Mars is obviously challenging. You can't take a full laboratory to Mars, and all the instruments you do send have to be light enough that they can leave Earth and make it to Mars, and they have to work in the dusty Martian atmosphere. US 10,337,996 B2 describes a Lidar instrument which can overcome these difficulties. The instrument includes two ultraviolet lasers (at 266 nm and 355 nm) and an infrared laser (at 905 nm). Instead of being hindered by the dusty atmosphere, these lasers actually use the