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Abstract EANA2026-119


Studying the detectability of anoxygenic microorganisms mixed with an Oxia Planum simulant to support the ExoMars mission

Mariano Battistuzzi (1), Matilde Ciani (2), Benjamin Tatton (3), Nisha Ramkissoon (3), Francesco Renzi (1,4), Andrew Alberini (1,4), Sole Biancalani (1,5,6,7), Cristina García Florentino (1), Giovanni Poggiali (1), Anaïs Roussel (1), Alessandra Adessi (2), Susanne Schwenzer (3), Victoria Pearson (3), Karen Olsson-Francis (3), Teresa Fornaro (1) and John R. Brucato (1)
(1) INAF- Astrophysical Observatory of Arcetri, Florence, Italy, (2) Department of Agriculture, Food, Environment and Forestry (DAGRI), University of Florence, Florence, Italy, (3) AstrobiologyOU, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK, (4) Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Florence, Sesto Fiorentino, Italy, (5) Department of Physics, University of Trento, Povo, Italy, (6) Italian Space Agency (ASI), Rome, Italy, (7) Department of Earth Sciences, University of Florence, Florence, Italy;


The European Space Agency (ESA) ExoMars mission [1] is set to launch in 2028, targeting Oxia Planum as its landing site. This site comprises part of an ancient fluviodeltaic sedimentary system and, due to its mineralogical composition and history, it is thought to have preserved potential biosignatures from damage due to the radiation environment of Mars [2]; this makes Oxia Planum an ideal location to search for traces of past (or present) life.

Project AnoxyMars is directly supporting the ExoMars mission by investigating the detectability of photosynthetic and non-photosynthetic anoxygenic microorganisms by the Rosalind Franklin rover's payload. These taxa are exposed to ionizing and UV radiation, simulating the Martian surface and subsurface conditions that the rover will probe. The selected microorganisms represent metabolisms that existed during Earth's Archean eon, before the evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis, and similarly could represent analogous early martian life forms. Additionally, they are sourced from anoxic marine, lacustrine, palustrine, and freshwater habitats, aligning with the paleoenvironments proposed for Oxia Planum. In the initial part of the project, we focused on characterizing the organisms before irradiation with UV and ionizing particles, utilizing different investigation tools, such as FTIR and µFTIR spectroscopy, Raman and fluorescence spectroscopy.

In this presentation we will provide the first results on the characterization of the lyophilized samples. Microorganisms were analyzed as pure cultures or mixed with the Oxia Planum simulant SOPHIA [3], to assess possible effects of the regolith on the detectability of the microorganisms. These results will inform the Rosalind Franklin rover science team on which kinds of biosignatures could be more easily detected by the instrument’s payload. This information will significantly enhance the mission's ability to detect traces of life on Mars.

[1] J.L. Vago, A.J. Coates, R. Jaumann, O. Korablev, V. Ciarletti, I. Mitrofanov, J.L. Josset, et al., From Habitability to Life on Mars, 309-347 (2018)

[2] C. Quantin-Nataf, J. Carter, L. Mandon, P. Thollot, M. Balme, M. Volat, L. Pan, et al., Astrobiology, 21, (3): 345–66 (2021)

[3] A. Dugdale, N.K. Ramkissoon, P. Fawdon, M.R. Patel, L. Hills, G. Degli-Alessandrini,E. Bonsall, et al., Icarus, 400, 115568 (2023)