Winnipeg scientist helps probe Mars for life

Ed Cloutis,a geology professor at the University of Winnipeg, will help in the search for life on Mars by tracking the release of methane.

Cloutis was asked about six months agoto help design and monitor what he calls a digital camera on steroids that will watch for the release of methane from the red planet.

Cloutis said finding biological sources of methane couldhelp in the searchforsigns of life.

"We're thinking if there's life on Mars it's going to be fairly primitive," he said. "So we're looking at bacteria that can chew on various things and one of the things that they produce is methane."

Aprobe will be sent into orbit around Mars searching for traces of the gas.

"This glorified camera will be looking at the composition of the atmosphere," said Cloutis, who will analyze results from the probe.

"We'll be looking not only at methane in the atmosphere, but it will also be looking for other gases that could be produced by different types of bacteria."

Cloutis said the instrument, jointly built between NASA and Canadian scientists, will be launched in 2016.

The project, which is called the MATMOS (Mars Atmospheric Trace Molecule Occultation Spectrometer), is a partnership among the Canadian Space Agency, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology.