What are the specific benefits of bringing space samples back to Earth?
Precision. Some space-bound experiments can’t be done very precisely. One example is determining the origin and age of a rock, which is extremely important as we try to piece together just how long Mars may have been warm and wet for life to arise.
Reproducibility. Science is all about being able to reproduce your results, especially when those results could be something as astonishing as life on Mars. Even if a spacecraft found what looked like a microscopic fossilized cell, or a chemical signature that was identical to life on Earth, we need to reproduce those results using more than one science instrument in more than one laboratory.
Duration. When NASA returned samples from the Moon during the Apollo program, it knew technology would improve over time, so it stored some samples aside and even kept some sealed. Bringing Mars samples back from Earth would mean being able to pull them out for future generations.
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