Connotea
CiteULike
del.ico.us
BibSonomyAbstract
Life in the Atacama: A scoring system for habitability and the robotic exploration for life
Department of Earth and Space Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA
Space Science Division, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California, USA
SETI Institute, Mountain View, California, USA
Hydrology and Water Resources Department, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
Space Science Division, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California, USA
SETI Institute, Mountain View, California, USA
Molecular Biosensor and Imaging Center, Mellon Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
Space Science Division, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California, USA
SETI Institute, Mountain View, California, USA
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
Planetary and Space Sciences Research Institute, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK
Eventscope, Remote Experience and Learning Laboratory, Studio for Creative Inquiry, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
Molecular Biosensor and Imaging Center, Mellon Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
Molecular Biosensor and Imaging Center, Mellon Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
International Research School of Planetary Sciences, Pescara, Italy
Molecular Biosensor and Imaging Center, Mellon Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
International Research School of Planetary Sciences, Pescara, Italy
Molecular Biosensor and Imaging Center, Mellon Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
GROK Laboratory, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, USA
GROK Laboratory, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, USA
GROK Laboratory, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, USA
The science goals of the Life in the Atacama (LITA) robotic field experiment are to understand habitat and seek out life in the Atacama Desert, Chile, as an analog to future missions to Mars. To those ends, we present a new data analysis tool, the LITA Data Scoring System (DSS), which (1) integrates rover and orbital data relevant to environmental habitability and life detection, and (2) provides a standard metric, or “score” to evaluate (a) the potential habitability, and (b) the strength of evidence for life at all locales along the rover's traverse. Designed and tested during the 2005 field campaign, first results from the DSS indicate that the three selected sites in the Atacama Desert are generally inhospitable. The strength of evidence for life is positively correlated with potential habitability at two of the three sites. Using factor analysis, we find three factors explain 79.9% of the variance in biological observations and five factors explain 96.2% of the variance in potential habitability across all sites. These factors are used to focus a discussion of scoring variable definitions for future robotic missions in the Atacama and of instrument selection and strategy development for future robotic missions on Earth and Mars.
Received 20 September 2006; accepted 21 November 2007; published 29 December 2007.
Citation: (2007), Life in the Atacama: A scoring system for habitability and the robotic exploration for life, J. Geophys. Res., 112, G04S08, doi:10.1029/2006JG000321.
Cited By