Two NASA space probes that visited Mars 30 years ago may have found alien microbes on the Red Planet and inadvertently killed them, a scientist is theorizing.
The Viking space probes of 1976-77 were looking for the wrong kind of life, so they didn't recognize it, a geology professor at Washington State University said.
In the 1970s, the Viking mission found no signs of life.
But it was looking for Earth-like life, in which salt water is the internal liquid of living cells.
Given the cold dry conditions of Mars, life could have evolved on Mars with the key internal fluid consisting of a mix of water and hydrogen peroxide.
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Yes, there has been some controversy regarding the results of the ‘labelled release’ (LR) experiment in the 1976 Viking missions.
Basically, Gilbert Levin – the designer of LR experiment, has long maintained that the results obtained on Mars were valid. Critics, however, suggest that the presence of carbon dioxide detected by the LR experiment could have been produced by an interaction with compounds likely to be present on Mars, such as hydrogen peroxide. Levin argues that “whatever the surface processes are on Mars, they are not innately highly oxidizing.”
Critics also note that the fact that the GCMS (gas chromatograph mass spectrometer) experiment didn’t find organic molecules doesn’t bode well for the LR experiment. But Levin is also supported by David Warmflash, an astrobiologist from the NASA Johnson Space Center. Warmflash maintains that there is some question as to whether the GCMS experiment was capable of finding organic molecules.
For more information:
http://www.space.com/news/spacehistory/viking_life_010728-1.html
There’s a lot more in the web article, including some support for a panspermia hypothesis applied to Mars.
Another good source is:
Goldsmith, D (1997). The hunt for life on mars. Dutton: Canada.
On a related note, after perusing images captured by the Mars Global Surveyor, author and science writer Arthur C Clarke (still) holds this opinion (see web site below):
"Something is actually moving and changing with the seasons that suggests, at least, vegetation," said Clarke.
http://www.space.com/peopleinterviews/clarke_mars_010601.html
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