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This work reviews the search for extraterrestrial life signatures with a special focus on the fluorescence microscope that we have been developing for the life-signature search on Mars and other sites. The surface and subterranean Mars, clouds of Venus, the Moon, asteroids, icy bodies, such as the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, and so on are important sites for life-signature exploration in the solar system. One possible exploration strategy is to target characteristics similar to those in terrestrial life, such as microorganisms with metabolic activity and similar uniform small structures microbes surrounded by a membrane that primarily comprise carbon-based molecules. These characteristics can be analyzed with fluorescence microscopy, which has a high spatial resolution and employs a combination of fluorescent pigments to distinguish microbial properties. Following an introduction, the life signature search and astrobiological analysis of the targeted characteristics are discussed. The extraterrestrial life exploration methods using a microscope are described. Also, other methods, including mass spectrometry, the sterilization-and-comparison method (detection of ability to die), proliferation, and analysis of shape, color, growth, or movement, are discussed. Lastly, we overview the life-signature detection fluorescence microscope that we have been developing, and present the Bread Board Model of it.
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