Distinguishing the chiral signature of life in the solar system and beyond

摘要

Homochirality is a characteristic signature of life or at the very least pre-biotic chemistry, and we explain how biotic and pre-biotic homochirality can be distinguished. We discuss the implications of the recent discovery of an enantiomeric excess in the Murchison meteorite. We describe how a combination of gas-chromatography and polarimetry could be used to detect life on mars, and introduce new vistas for space polarimetry in our proposed Search for EXtra-SOlar Homochirality (SEXSOH).