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The best-selling author of 'the Martian', Andy Weir, told 5 live it would be "astounding" if the European Space Agency's ExoMars mission found evidence of life on Mars.

Andy was speaking to Afternoon Edition's Sarah Brett, and to ExoMars Rover Lead Systems Engineer Paul Meacham, as part of a special programme ahead of the launch of the first part of the mission.

One of ExoMars's primary goals is to search below the Martian surface for signs of life, a discovery that Andy said would be so "amazing" he wouldn't "even know how to describe how awesome it would be", and could lead to the conclusion that the galaxy was "absolutely teaming with life".

He also added that such a discovery would lead to a "huge amount of space funding".

This clip is originally from Afternoon Edition on Thursday, 10 March 2016.