Miller on Mars:
An exploration of possible origins
of extremophiles on the red planet
Amino Acids:
the building blocks of life
The Miller/Urey Experiment
Substances Produced by
Miller's experiment:
Tar
Carboxlic acid
Glycine
Alanine
Glutamic acid
Aspartic acid
Valine
Leucine
Serine
Proline
85%
13.0%
1.05%
0.85%
Trace
Trace
Trace
Trace
Trace
Trace
Trace
Miller’s Original Plumbing
Therefore, what?
“Is there life on
Mars?”
“No, not there either.”
-Russian saying popular in
the Soviet period, trans. by
Vladimir Ivanovich Shlyakov
(1993).
“The arid world”
Average recorded
temperature on Mars
is -63 degrees
Celsius.
 Intensity or solar
radiation is half that
of Earth.
 Average recorded
atmospheric pressure
is 6 Torr.

Martian Atmosphere
Carbon dioxide: 95.32%
 Nitrogen: 2.7%
 Argon: 1.6%
 Oxygen: 0.13%
 Carbon monoxide: 0.07%
 Water: 0.03
 Neon: 0.00025%

Martian Atmosphere
Carbon dioxide: 95.32%
 Nitrogen: 2.7%
 Argon: 1.6%
 Oxygen: 0.13%
 Carbon monoxide: 0.07%
 Water: 0.03
 Neon: 0.00025%
 Methane: 0.000000011%

“This overlap [of methane and
water vapor] points to a common
underground source in the same
regions,”
– Vittorio Formisano of the Institute of Physics and
Interplanetary Science in Rome, Italy
Miller on Mars: schematic drawing
1
0
0
1
st
The twenty amino acids
found in nature
Acknowledgements
Dr. David Allred
Dr. Gary Booth
Sweet Mars Course research team