Bradford PhD student Emma Newton is playing a part in NASA's mission to Mars in 2005 - which could discover life on the planet.

Emma's study of blue-green algae in Antarctica links with efforts to unearth life forms on Mars, a similarly hostile environment.

The 24-year-old is working with fellow scientists in Britain and America to develop a miniature device which would be fitted to a Martian lander to probe beneath the planet's surface.

Competing teams have been asked by NASA to come up with the technology, and Emma is hopeful the team she is assisting will be picked to help the mission.

"It would be amazing to know I was there at the start of it all," she said. "Obviously the bigger picture is very exciting, but when you are involved in your research it is sometimes difficult to see how far it can be taken."

Emma, who came to Bradford from her native Ellesmere Port as an undergraduate six years ago, explained special techniques had to be used to learn how tiny bugs could survive in Antarctica's harsh environment.

Extreme winds take out the moisture in the air, and high levels of radiation get through because the ozone layer is so thin.

"Some microbial communities live on the rock surface and use sunscreen pigments to protect themselves, but others can live in the rocks themselves," she said. "It can be pretty difficult to get a look at them. Raman spectroscopy makes it possible for us to examine them, without damaging either the microbes or their habitat."

The spectrometer is a laser technique allowing scientists to investigate tiny life forms.

The NASA plan involves shrinking the size of a Raman spectrometer from the lab version, weighing several kilos, to a tiny version weighing just a few grams.

"We know Mars used to be much warmer than it is now and had vast oceans, but the water was lost, leaving the surface extremely dry," said Emma.

But, she added, science fiction fans should not get carried away. "I believe there's a possibility of finding evidence of life on Mars but you are talking about microscopic organisms, not little green men.