By ablating and ionizing samples, the device could potentially detect proteins, amino acids and other organic molecules.
A downsized version of an instrument that can detect organic compounds using a laser and a mass spectrometer could one day fly on missions to Mars and other potentially habitable worlds in the solar system.
The instrument uses a technique called laser desorption mass spectrometry and combines a pulsed ultravioletwith an analyzer called an Orbitrap. It works by using the laser to vaporize tiny amounts of material from a sample of, say, rock. This results in molecules being liberated from the sample , and the liberated molecules are then ionized without destroying the molecules themselves.
Their composition is subsequently analyzed by the Orbitrap, which works by trapping the now-ionized molecules in orbits around an electrode. The electrical signal from the ionized molecules can then be converted into a mass spectrum, telling scientists the identity of the molecules.LDMS and Orbitrap are particularly sensitive to organic molecules, including building blocks of life such as proteins and amino acids.
"You can find them in the labs of pharmaceutical, medical and proteomic [the study of proteins] industries," Ricardo Arevalo, an associate professor of geology at the University of Maryland and lead author of a new study describing a smaller, more portable prototype version of the technology, said in a"The one in my own lab is just under 400 pounds [181 kilograms], so they're quite large, and it took us eight years to make a prototype that could be used efficiently in space —...
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