Many sci-fi plots revolve around alien life reaching Earth and causing problems. In the "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," alien pods arrive on Earth and begin replacing humans. In "The Thing," a shape-shifting alien creature takes over an Antarctic research base and begins killing people. While frightening, those are easily dismissed as highly unlikely.
However, in "Life," a single-celled alien life form arrives in a Mars sample and rapidly evolves into a dangerous hostile creature. While rapid evolution seems unlikely, the premise isn't far-fetched: Mars samples have to be handled very carefully.
In the next decade or so, a mission will likely return Martian samples to Earth. Scientists hope that when they arrive, those samples will provide conclusive evidence of life on Mars. But what if the samples contain actual, extant life? It could be disastrous if Martian life came into contact with Earth.
That's why we need to be sure if anything is alive in those samples. A team of researchers are developing stringent techniques to scan these samples and determine if they contain anything living.
Their method is presented in research titled "Submicron-scale detection of microbes and smectite from the interior of a Mars-analogue basalt sample by optical-photothermal infrared spectroscopy." The lead author is Yohey Suzuki, Associate Professor from the Department of Earth and Planetary Science at the University of Tokyo.
"For near-future missions planned for Mars Sample Return (MSR), an international working group organized by the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) developed the sample safety assessment framework (SSAF)," the authors explain in their paper. "To prepare for MSR, analytical instruments of high sensitivity need to be tested on effective Mars analogue materials."