The search for life signatures on Mars by the Tianwen-3 Mars sample return mission

Zengqian Hou; Jizhong Liu; Yigang Xu; Fuchuan Pang; Yuming Wang; Liping Qin; Yang Liu; Yu-Yan Sara Zhao; Guangfei Wei; Mengjiao Xu; Kun Jiang; Chuanpeng Hao; Shichao Ji; Renzhi Zhu; Bingkun Yu; Jia Liu; Zhenfeng Sheng; Juntao Wang; Chaolin Zhang; Yiliang Li

doi:10.1093/nsr/nwae313

The search for life signatures on Mars by the Tianwen-3 Mars sample return mission

Natl Sci Rev. 2024 Oct 21;11(11):nwae313. doi: 10.1093/nsr/nwae313. eCollection 2024 Nov.

Authors

Zengqian Hou^{1

2}, Jizhong Liu^{1

3}, Yigang Xu⁴, Fuchuan Pang^{1

3}, Yuming Wang^{1

5}, Liping Qin^{1

5}, Yang Liu⁶, Yu-Yan Sara Zhao⁷, Guangfei Wei¹, Mengjiao Xu¹, Kun Jiang¹, Chuanpeng Hao¹, Shichao Ji¹, Renzhi Zhu¹, Bingkun Yu¹, Jia Liu¹, Zhenfeng Sheng¹, Juntao Wang¹, Chaolin Zhang^{6

8}, Yiliang Li⁹

Affiliations

¹ Deep Space Exploration Laboratory, China.
² Institute of Geology, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, China.
³ Lunar Exploration and Space Engineering Center, China National Space Administration, China.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Isotope Geochemistry, Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China.
⁵ School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, China.
⁶ State Key Laboratory of Space Weather, National Space Science Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China.
⁷ Research Center for Planetary Science, College of Earth Science, Chengdu University of Technology, China.
⁸ University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, China.
⁹ Department of Earth Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, China.

Abstract

We present the proposed strategic study, 'Integrated elements for Martian life signature exploration', to support the sampling and identification of any potential biosignatures in compliance with the engineering constraints of the Tianwen-3 mission.