Is there 'Past' Life on Mars? Crowdsourcing May Have the Answer

The question of where or not there was ever (or even possibly still is somewhere) life on mars has been asked long before David Bowie asked it in his 1973 hit. Explorations and findings of the last decade and a half has the scientific community excited and now crowdsourcing offers the next step in the ultimate search. NASA has teamed up with two science-led crowdsourcing platforms Drivendata and HEROX to launch 'Mars Spectrometry,Detect Evidence for Past Life' invites data scientists, researchers and academics to help find out if there really was life on Mars. 

Centuries of speculation turned into possibilities when recent discoveries thanks to the Rover missions started in 2008 by the Curiosity revealed life sustaining environmental conditions. Rock and soil samples collected by the Mars Rovers found traces of liquid water following analysis of analogue data examined in Earth laboratories. The presence of water could have sustained microorganisms a long time ago during the Noachian Time period - approximately 4.1 - 3.7 billion years. However it is uncertain whether or not this would have sustained organic life, even with the detection of methane levels in the samples. NASA's challenge hopes to provide more definitive answers with the help crowdsourcing.

Drivendata is a platform that facilitates open source collaboration between data scientists to provide statistical models for challenging scientific problems. Their previous challenges include 'Deep Chimpact' a study to improve and accelerate distance estimation - used in wildlife studies - to collect critical information for wildlife monitoring and conservation. HEROX is a crowdsourcing platform for find the best solutions to business and world challenges combining crowdourcing with online social networking. HEROX works regularly with NASA, on a variety of challenges including their 'Waste Jettison Mechanism Challenge' calling for the best methods to dispose of non-recyclable waste from manned spacecraft. 

“This is a fascinating research question where machine learning tools can have a real impact on how we can learn more about our place in the universe. It’s a great chance to harness the collective intelligence and passion of the data community to advance the state of open science.” - Greg Lipstein, Principal, DrivenData

 

The latest challenge calls on data scientists to work either individually or as collaborative teams to devise innovative methods of mass spectrometry - ability to analyse molecule structures - to conduct evolved gas analysis of Mars analogue samples collected on both commercial and planetary instruments for Mars exploration. The best methods should be able to detect the presence of certain families of chemical compounds of scientific interest in the samples. The winning method will award the team or individual a cash prize from a purse of $30,000 and have their studies play an integral part in future planetary missions.