The European Space Agency in collaboration with Roscosmos have launched a joint mission to explore the atmosphere of Mars and hunt for signs of life. The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) took off from Baikonur in Kazakhstan on Monday and is due to reach the red planet in October. The Scotsman reports: The probe will investigate whether methane in the Martian atmosphere is coming from a geological source or is being produced by microbes. If all goes well, the two space powers expect to follow up this venture with a rover, to be assembled in the UK, which will drill into the surface. That could launch in 2018, or, as is more probable, in 2020. The prospect of finding life on Mars – even microscopic organisms – has excited scientists for some time, but so far none has been discovered. “The fact that they’ve not found life doesn’t mean certainly that there’s no life there,” said Paolo Ferri, the European Space Agency (ESA) head of mission operations. If life is discovered, it actually raises questions about whether future manned missions to the planet should be attempted, said Mark McCaughrean, senior science adviser at ESA. “Weirdly, if we find life on [...]