Scientists develop holographic microscopy to detect life in space

World
Europe

Scientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) are developing a new device aimed at finding living organisms in space.

The device, based on digital holographic microscopy, uses lasers to record 3-D images. It is ideal for astrobiology because it has few moving parts, and so has less need for repairs.

"(The new device) may be our best bet for spotting extraterrestrial microbes," Caltech said in a news release on Thursday.

An unprocessed view of Saturn's moon Enceladus, which NASA describes as an "ocean world". /VCG Photo

According to the institute, objects in the microscope are illuminated with a laser, and the light that bounces off the object back to a detector is measured. This scattered light contains information about the amplitude (the intensity) of the scattered light, and about its phase (a separate property that can be used to tell how far the light traveled after it scattered).

With these two types of information, computers can reconstruct 3-D images of the object to show motion through all three dimensions.

Enceladus, the sixth-largest moon of Saturn, taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft's narrow-angle camera. /VCG Photo

One goal of scientists is to search for signs of life on Saturn's icy moon Enceladus. As a moon that contains a lot of water, Enceladus is described by NASA as an "ocean world" that is the closest the US space agency has come to finding a place with the necessary ingredients for life.

According to Caltech, the last probe that searched for extraterrestrial life was part of NASA's Viking program in the late 1970s. There hasn’t been any clear consensus in the scientific community on how best to continue the search since then.

Holographic microscopy is now being tested by scientists in the Arctic, and there are plans to experiment in other harsh environments such as Antarctica.

10071km