Methane, which has been measured
in the Martian atmosphere, could actually
be a sign for life.
It could be coming from the deep
subsurface of Mars
in areas where there's water and methane coexisting.
So, if we could measure close to the
surface of the methane
to get an idea of where to drill deep in
the future, that would really be
 advantageous for our research.
So, most exciting would be if the rover
could drive right up to the walls of the
ancient lake bed,
and see beautiful, laminated, carbonate structures
that were made by ancient biology on Mars.
These are called stromatolites.
These laminated, carbonate structures
that are signatures
of microbial activity
and I'm hoping that the ones on Mars
would be as well preserved or even
better preserved than the beautiful ones
we find in Western Australia, and maybe they
could be even better preserved
because the Mars
stromatolites wouldn't have had mammals
trampling all over them
for thousands of years and I also hope
that they would be filled with really
juicy organic carbon molecules
that we could get samples of and then
take back to Earth and analyze in the future.
