UV luminescence characterisation of organics in Mars-analogue substrates

This project was supported by a Leverhulme Trust Research Project Grant (RPG-2015-071). C Cousins also wishes to acknowledge funding by the Royal Society of Edinburgh.Detection of organic matter is one of the core objectives of future Mars exploration. The ability to probe rocks, soils, and other geological substrates for organic targets is a high priority for in situ investigation, sample caching, and sample return. UV luminescence – the emission of visible light following UV irradiation – is a tool that is beginning to be harnessed for planetary exploration. We conducted UV photoluminescence analyses of (i) Mars analogue sediments doped with polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs;