Engineers want to use darts to determine if there is life on Mars

(Image credit: Twitter.com/itretrospective)

last updated 8 January 2015

A group of aerospace and robotics engineers wants to throw lawn darts at Mars, and they have started a fundraiser to make their dream a reality.

The team wants to find out if there is life on Mars, but needs the right equipment — a small robot that can fit on a rover and dig deep. The ExoLance could tag along with another mission to Mars, Popular Science reports, and once it enters the atmosphere a dispenser filled with darts will detach and fall to the surface at a supersonic speed, able to reach three to six feet into the Martian soil. The darts would be able to run a metabolic test to differentiate between living and non-living chemistry.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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