NASA's JPL Is Developing A 'Chemical Laptop' To Discover Aliens

Engineers and scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) are developing a Chemical Laptop to hunt for aliens and signs of life in the outer world. NASA believes that the hunt for signature of life would require something small and portable that can analyze the samples for special materials that are associated with life. The Chemical Laptop is a miniature laboratory that can look for amino acids and fatty acids; and is quite sensitive.

NASA engineers hope that the Chemical Laptop will be sent to another planet like Europa or Mars for search of life. This miniature laboratory is about the size of a regular laptop but has enough room to perform all the chemical analysis to determine presence of life or life sustaining components.


JPL's Peter Wills, the principal investigator on the project informs that the chemical laptop can be programmed on the go to perform variety of functions. It can have different apps for variety of tests on amino acids and fatty acids. Amino acids are the basic building blocks of proteins and fatty acids are the key components of cell membranes. These acids are essential to support life but are often found in non-living sources. The Chemical Laptop will be able to find these out.

The researchers did a field test of the chemical laptop at the JPL's Mars Yard. The laptop was mounted on a rover to show that it works fine outside of the laboratory setup. The ultimate goal for the research team is to put the laptop on a rover to roam on another planet. The team is currently working on upcoming tests at Atacama Desert (Chile). If successful, it'd make way for the Chemical Laptop to be put on icy-worlds like that of Europa or the Enceladus.

For further information about the Chemical Laptop, check out the source link below.

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