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The life-detecting instrument -- named for the late Nobel Laureate Harold Urey -- is to perform the first search for key classes of organic molecules in the Martial environment during the European Space Agency's 2013 ExoMars Rover Mission.

Professor Jeffrey Bada of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California-San Diego, who is leading the project, received the National Aeronautics and Space Administration funding to refine the instrument that will use state-of-the-art analytical methods to identify molecules at part-per-million sensitivities.

The instrument is the first with the capability to effectively discriminate between Martian materials produced by biological and non-biological processes. In addition, the investigation will provide definitive oxidation characteristics of the samples.

Among other things, the Urey instrument will look for signs of past or present life on Mars, analyzing rock and soil samples for organic molecules and amino acids -- the so-called building blocks of life.

Urey -- small enough to be held in the palm of one's hand -- will be built and tested at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

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