Mahaffy: SAM is a suite of instruments that is one of 10 investigations on the Mars
Science Laboratory, named Curiosity, which is on its way to Mars. I'm the principal
investigator on SAM, the sample analysis at Mars experiment. Eigenbrode: MSL will collect a
sample either drill it or will scoop up a powdered sample of some sort, and it will
drop that into SAM. And then it heats it up really hot and produces a whole bunch
of gases that come out of that rock. Mahaffy: SAM has three different instruments
glued together by a system that moves sample around and moves gas around and
processes the gas. Eigendrode: The isotopes of those gases will tell us about the processes
that form them. In particular, it helps us identify organic molecules that might be
present. And that is a big secret of Mars, is where are those organic molecules and
where did they come from? So SAM will help us identify those. Conrad: On Earth we have
the luxury of putting in sample after sample into each laboratory apparatus.
Once you go to another planet, every dot of every electron that you use is
measured. So one way in which Sam differs from earthbound instruments is that it
is very, very sensitive just like instruments that take up a whole bench
top in the laboratory, but it's relatively tiny, it's about the size of a
microwave oven. Mars is a puzzle: we don't know whether
life ever arose on Mars, we don't know if there is life there now. But what we can
measure is what the potential is for habitability on Mars,
and we can do this by looking at the complete chemical picture. Mahaffy: Does life
emerge generally in planets where the conditions for life are favorable, or
might life take its own unique paths in different environments and turn out
differently.