Fire missiles at Mars

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Fire missiles at Mars to find deeply buried life

IN THE hunt for life on Mars, it's time to pull out the heavy artillery. A non-profit group has proposed a mission that involves showering Mars with bunker-busting missiles that would penetrate deep into the ground but deliver probes, not warheads.

On Mars, preserved traces of microbes could lurk in deep subsurface ice, where they would be shielded from harsh cosmic radiation. NASA's Curiosity rover has a drill, but it only penetrates a few centimetres. "Curiosity doesn't go very deep – it is literally scratching the surface," says Chris Carberry, executive director of the non-profit group Explore Mars, based in Beverly, Massachusetts.

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