As an official member of the Mars 2020 Science Team, Impossible Sensing’s CEO Pablo Sobron plays a critical role in interpreting data sent back to earth from the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover. A leading Raman spectroscopy expert who contributed to the design of Perseverance’s remote sensing instrument, Sobron and the rest of the IMS team were on stand-by as SuperCam took the first off-earth Raman spectra this week.
SuperCam uses remote optical measurements and laser spectroscopy to determine fine-scale mineralogy, chemistry, and atomic and molecular composition of samples encountered on Mars. This is the first time the Raman spectroscopy technique has been used off-planet.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech & LANL
Listen to some of the first sounds of Mars HERE
Sobron has spent 17+ years pioneering this innovative spectroscopic technique – used to identify structures of molecular fingerprints – across platforms. He and his team at Impossible Sensing continue to develop the next generation of Raman instruments.
This exciting news underscores the important and unique position Impossible Sensing occupies in the ongoing development of next-generation Raman spectroscopy instruments, including NASA-funded projects already in progress: MERLIN, HARPOON, DiSCO, and ISEE. Impossible Sensing is building the next wave of Raman tools and will continue to play a critical role in mankind's pressing efforts to seek evidence of life on other worlds.