Urey Will Test for Specific Building Blocks of Life

The device called Urey: Mars Organic and Oxidant Detector, is designed to test for the chemical building blocks of life to a sensitivity about a million times that of previous tests. The molecules it will be testing for are amino acids. The primary argument that has been set forth before is that these acids occur in nature, and are not necessarily of organic origin. But, Urey can tell. Amino acids in nature come in a racemic mixture of stereoisomers, whereas those from life are all one stereoisomer. Think of it like hands or feet. One is right handed the other left, if they are from non-biological origin its mixture of right to left is 50/50. All life on earth uses almost solely one type. They're hoping to find just one, which would give a lot of support the idea of life on Mars. Yet, if they find both, it doesn't mean there's no life because life on Mars could use both (there are a few instances of this happening on Earth).