Thermochemolysis in search for organics in extraterrestrial environments

The Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) investigation of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) addresses the chemical and isotopic composition of the atmosphere and volatiles extracted from solid samples. The SAM investigation is designed to contribute substantially to the mission goal of quantitatively assessing the habitability of Mars as an essential step in the search for past or present life on Mars. SAM is a 40 kg instrument suite located in the interior of MSL's Curiosity rover. The SAM instruments are a quadrupole mass spectrometer, a tunable laser spectrometer, and a 6-column gas chromatograph all coupled through solid and gas processing systems to provide complementary information on the same samples. The SAM suite is able to measure a suite of light isotopes and to analyze volatiles directly from the atmosphere or thermally released from solid samples. In addition to measurements of simple inorganic compounds and noble gases SAM will conduct a sensitive search for organic compounds with either thermal or chemical extraction from sieved samples delivered by the sample processing system on the Curiosity rover's robotic arm.

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“…• C (Kaal and Janssen 2008;Geffroy-Rodier et al 2009) using a mixture of tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAH) and methanol (Fig. 1B).…”

Section: Solid Sample Measurements Based On Wet Chemical Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Sample Analysis at Mars Investigation and Instrument Suite

et al. 2012

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“…The search for astrobiologically relevant organic compounds on Mars, including key molecules such as amino acids and carboxylic acids, will require a wet chemical processing and derivatization to transform these organic compounds into species that are sufficiently volatile and amenable to GC columns to be detected by GCMS (Meunier et al 2007;Buch et al 2009). Chemical derivatization using dimethylformamidedimethylacetal (DMF-DMA) has already been incorporated into the Cometary Sampling and Composition (COSAC) evolved gas experiment on ESA's Rosetta Lander and will provide amino acid detection and enantiomeric measurements on the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014 (Meierhenrich et al 2001;Szopa et al 2003;Goesmann et al 2007).…”

Section: Solid Sample Measurements Based On Wet Chemical Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…SAM also has the ability to detect polar molecular components that are bound into more complex organic molecules (e.g. amino acids in proteins, fatty acids in membranes, or carboxylic acids in abiotic macromolecules) by thermochemolysis (i.e., specifically, thermally assisted hydrolysis and methylation) at temperatures >340°C (Kaal and Janssen 2008;Geffroy-Rodier et al 2009) using a mixture oftetramethylanunonium hydroxide (TMAH) and methanol (Fig. IB).…”

Section: Solid Sample Measurements Based On Wet Chemical Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Sample Analysis at Mars Investigation and Instrument Suite

Mahaffy¹,

Webster²,

Cabane³

et al. 2012

Mars Science Laboratory

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The Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) investigation of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) addresses the chemical and isotopic composition of the atmosphere and volatiles extracted from solid samples. The SAM investigation is designed to contribute substantially to the mission goal of quantitatively assessing the habitability of Mars as an essential step in the search for past or present life on Mars. SAM is a 40 kg instrument suite located in the interior ofMSL's Curiosity rover. The SAM instruments are a quadrupole mass spectrometer, a tunable laser spectrometer, and a 6-column gas chromatograph all coupled through solid and gas processing systems to provide complementary information on the same samples. The SAM suite is able to measure a suite oflight isotopes and to analyze volatiles directly from the atmosphere or thermally released from solid samples. In addition to measurements of simple inorganic compounds and noble gases SAM will conduct a sensitive search for organic compounds with either thermal or chemical extraction from sieved samples delivered by the sample processing system on the Curiosity rover's robotic arm.

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“…Particular samples, suggested as Mars analogues, were analyzed by thermochemolysis-TMAH, reporting the presence of n-alkenes, fatty acids and carbohydratse (mainly as permethylated deoxy aldonic acids) [156]. A study of kerogen-like organic matter isolated from sediment was also analyzed by thermochemolysis-TMAH [157].…”

Section: Othermentioning

confidence: 99%