Micropod Episode 2 - Lewis Dartnell and Louisa Preston

This month's Micropod looks at the possibility of microbial life in space. Dr Louisa Preston talks about extremophiles (or extreme-lovers as she calls them) which live in hostile environments on earth. These places are extremely hot, acidic, cold, alkaline and can be used as potential analogues for other-worldly environments. Then we hear from BBC Horizon star, Dr Lewis Dartnell, who chats about the Mars Curiosity Rover that's due to land on the red planet on 6 August 2012. He tells us about his use of Raman spectroscopy to look for organic molecules and microbes, as well as the ExoMars rover that will fly this instrument to Mars. Look out for more on Astrobiology in the September issue of Microbiologist.