"Viking landers may have missed Martian life."

[exoscientist]

Just saw this on Bautforum.com:<br /><br />Viking landers may have missed Martian life. <br />22:19 23 October 2006 <br />NewScientist.com news service <br />Mark Buchanan and David L Chandler <br />"Now, a paper by Rafael Navarro-Gonzalez of the University of Mexico and others demonstrates that the GCMS instrument was incapable of detecting organic compounds even in Mars-like soils from various locations on Earth. This includes Chile's Atacama desert, where other tests prove that living microbes are indeed present. <br />In some soils – including samples taken from Rio Tinto in Spain, which contain iron compounds similar to those detected in Mars soils by NASA's rover Opportunity, the sensitivity of the GCMS was actually a million times lower than its claimed threshold for detection." <br />http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=dn10361&feedId=online-news_rss20<br /><br /> The paper is freely available from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences web site:<br /><br />Chemistry <br />The limitations on organic detection in Mars-like soils by thermal volatilization-gas chromatography-MS and their implications for the Viking results. <br />( astrobiology | detection of organics | search for martian life | extreme environments | deserts ) <br />Rafael Navarro-González *, Karina F. Navarro *, José de la Rosa *, Enrique Iñiguez *, Paola Molina *, Luis D. Miranda , Pedro Morales , Edith Cienfuegos , Patrice Coll ¶, François Raulin ¶, Ricardo Amils ||, and Christopher P. McKay ** <br />Published online before print October 23, 2006 <br />Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 10.1073/pnas.0604210103 <br />OPEN ACCESS ARTICLE <br />http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0604210103v1<br /><br />From the abstract:<br /><br />"In the Antarctic Dry Valleys and the Atacama and Libyan Deserts we <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[ordinary_guy]

New Scientist/Space just a ran piece on the same thing...<br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p><b>Viking landers may have found Martian life after all</b><br />22:19 23 October 2006<br />NewScientist.com news service<br />Mark Buchanan and David L Chandler<br /><br />A flawed test on NASA’s twin Viking spacecraft may have fooled scientists into overlooking signs of life during their examination of the Martian surface 30 years ago. Researchers now say that one of the landers’ experiments was not sensitive enough to find organic molecules in the soil, despite signs of life shown by another test. Other researchers say the team may also have been fooled by the strange forms that Martian life might take.<br /><br />The results from Vikings’ onboard experiments are confusing because some tests suggested the presence of organisms capable of digesting organic molecules. But heating the soil with a gas-chromatograph mass spectrometer (GCMS) to release organic molecules found nothing, causing most scientists to doubt the results of the life-detection tests. Instead they put the soil reactivity down to the presence of peroxides or other reactive substances.<br /><br />Now, a paper by Rafael Navarro-Gonzalez of the University of Mexico and others demonstrates that the GCMS instrument was incapable of detecting organic compounds even in Mars-like soils from various locations on Earth. This includes parts of Chile's Atacama desert where other tests prove that living microbes are indeed present.<br /><br />In some soils – including samples taken from Rio Tinto in Spain, which contain iron compounds similar to those detected in Mars soils by NASA's rover Opportunity, the sensitivity of the GCMS was actually a million times lower than its claimed threshold for detection.<br /><br /><b>Outstanding puzzle</b><br /><br />Gilbert Levin, one of the Viking scientists who has long argued that the G</p></blockquote> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p style="font:normalnormalnormal12px/normalTimes;margin:0px"><strong>Mere precedent is a dangerous source of authority.</strong></p> <p style="font:normalnormalnormal12px/normalTimes;margin:0px">-Andrew Jackson (1767-1845)</p> </div>

 

[nexus555]

Here's an article from ABC news, same info:<br /><br />http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=2600879&page=2<br /><br />Apparentley they took samples from many harsh environments of the earth (deserts, antarctica, etc.) and performed the same tests and got the same results - no life, which there is known to be life. So the Viking's tests should be thrown out.<br /><br />More hope for microbiology on Mars! (though for you ET fans, you might have to wait)

 

[paulanderson]

I remember when it was reported years ago the other studies which also found that Viking could easily have missed smaller trace amounts of organics in the soil (with some people <i>assuming</i> then that there are none at all). They could also have easily missed life itself it seems. Levin has said for a long time that the tests were flawed, and few listened...

 

[serak_the_preparer]

In the news again:<br /><br />Scientist: NASA found life on Mars - and killed it (AP/CNN)<br /><br />January 7, 2007<br /><br /><i>. . . In the 1970s, the Viking mission found no signs of life. <br /><br />But it was looking for Earth-like life, in which salt water is the internal liquid of living cells. <br /><br />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, said Schulze-Makuch.<br /><br />That's because a water-hydrogen peroxide mix stays liquid at very low temperatures, or -68 degrees Fahrenheit, and doesn't destroy cells when it freezes. It can suck water vapor out of the air.<br /><br />The Viking experiments of the 1970s wouldn't have noticed hydrogen peroxide-based life and, in fact, would have killed it by drowning and overheating the microbes, said Schulze-Makuch....</i>

 

[qso1]

It would not suprise me if this turned out true. I think that as good an effort as was made to seek life on Mars. The Viking teams just didn't have the available tech and knowledge. Even today, it would be very difficult to design life detecting equipment that could tell us for certain that life had been detected on mars.<br /><br />We are also no longer in a position to prove that Viking experiments did find life but the next best option is to send a new probe to mars with state of the art equipment for life detection. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[bushuser]

IF there is no life on Mars, this debate will continue for 100 years! Every negative result will be balanced against the argument, "You sampled the wrong location!" or "Your methodology won't recognize exotic forms of life." <br /><br />I hope Mars is teeming with organisms, so that this question can be answered within my lifetime.

 

[qso1]

I hope the question will be answered within my lifetime as well but I suspect it won't be. Your points are precisely the reason why I think this. There will have to be a probe that brings back a soil sample which still won't probably be 100% confirmed because the samples die enroute. But it may be close enough to send a human expedition to confirm then study life forms. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[jfd145]

"Life could have evolved on Mars with the key internal fluid consisting of a mix of water and hydrogen peroxide, said Schulze-Makuch"<br />This seems very speculative at best to try to attach the Viking results to a microbe with an internal fluid of water and hydrogen peroxide. I know there is a real push to find life on mars but the surface of the planet doesn't seem like the best place. I beleive the best hope (if there is life) is below the surface.

 

[silylene old]

jfd, welcome to our forums!<br /><br />Your first post is a very good one, and I concur with your analysis. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature" align="center"><em><font color="#0000ff">- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -</font></em> </div><div class="Discussion_UserSignature" align="center"><font color="#0000ff"><em>I really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function.</em></font> </div> </div>

 

[3488]

Hi there.<br /><br />I also agree, with jfd. Any life on Mars, if it exists at all, will be deep underground IMO, where solar UV radiation cannot damge DNA, moisture is present & temperatures are more stable.<br /><br />I am not surprised that the Viking Landers found nothing.<br /><br />Andrew Brown. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080">"I suddenly noticed an anomaly to the left of Io, just off the rim of that world. It was extremely large with respect to the overall size of Io and crescent shaped. It seemed unbelievable that something that big had not been visible before".</font> <em><strong><font color="#000000">Linda Morabito </font></strong><font color="#800000">on discovering that the Jupiter moon Io was volcanically active. Friday 9th March 1979.</font></em></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://www.launchphotography.com/</font><br /><br /><font size="1" color="#000080">http://anthmartian.googlepages.com/thisislandearth</font></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://web.me.com/meridianijournal</font></p> </div>

 

[ldyaidan]

How far down would it need to be in order to be protected from the radiation? I've heard anywhere from a few feet, to much deeper. <br /><br />Rae

 

[robnissen]

"I am not surprised that the Viking Landers found nothing."<br /><br />IMHO that statement is quite an overstatement. It seems that Viking did find SOMETHING, the question is what did it find. I have never heard a good explanation of why one test result came back positive, other than speculation that the test must have failed. I agree, however, that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and one ambiguous maybe positive test result is not enough to claim there is life on Mars.<br /><br />I have not read this latest paper, but from the summary on sdc and cnn, I am not impressed. If this paper had tied its thesis into the positive Viking test, it would be interesting, but there is no such tie-in in the media reports. From the media articles, the paper does not sound much different from saying, if Bigfoot lives on Mars and he is made of hydrogen peroxide, the Viking tests might have drowned Bigfoot. That doesn't seem like much of a thesis to me.

 

[serak_the_preparer]

I'm afraid I agree with you, and also with jfd145. Martian life would, in my opinion, be better off underground, closer to whatever water there is and farther from the radiation.<br />

 

[bonzelite]

they need to find something other than tiny, exotic, microscopic, bacteria-like life. they need to find fossilized plants or some bizarre and unexplainable organic formations that appear clearly non-geologic in origin. that would remove any vagueness. but this would nearly mandate human-like mobility and investigative ability from a 1st person experience. until then, all we have is remote sensing devices. and those are presently very limited. sure, they're more advanced all of the time, but cannot possess an intuition and range of access that humans would have. <br /><br />

 

[robnissen]

"I have not read this latest paper, but from the summary on sdc and cnn, I am not impressed. If this paper had tied its thesis into the positive Viking test, it would be interesting, but there is no such tie-in in the media reports."<br /><br />I stand corrected. There is a link in another post to this article about the tie-in between this hypothesis and the Viking test results. This hypothesis does attempt to explain the anomalous Viking results. Which as I stated in my previous post, does make this paper "interesting."<br /><br />In particular, I found the following interesting: <br /><br />1. "The Labeled Release experiment, in which samples of Martian soil (and putative soil organisms) were exposed to water and a nutrient source including radiolabeled carbon, showed rapid production of radiolabeled CO2 which then leveled off. Schulze-Makuch said the initial increase could have been due to metabolism by hydrogen peroxide-containing organisms, and the leveling off could have been due to the organisms dying from exposure to the experimental conditions."<br /><br />2. "The possibility that the tests killed the organisms they were looking for is also consistent with the results of the Pyrolytic Release experiment, in which radiolabeled CO2 was converted to organic compounds by samples of Martian soil. Of the seven tests done, three showed significant production of organic substances and one showed much higher production. The variation could simply be due to patchy distribution of microbes, said Schulze-Makuch. Perhaps most interesting was that the sample with the lowest production-lower even than the control-had been treated with liquid water."<br /><br />3. "Hydrogen peroxide is a powerful oxidant. When released from dying cells, it would sharply lower the amount of organic material in their surroundings. This would help explain why Viking's gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer detected no organic compounds on the surface of Mars."<br /><br />I have always believed that peo

 

[danieloneil01]

they need to find something other than tiny, exotic, microscopic, bacteria-like life. they need to find fossilized plants or some bizarre and unexplainable organic formations that appear clearly non-geologic in origin. that would remove any vagueness. but this would nearly mandate human-like mobility and investigative ability from a 1st person experience. until then, all we have is remote sensing devices. and those are presently very limited. sure, they're more advanced all of the time, but cannot possess an intuition and range of access that humans would have.<br /><br />__________________________________________________________________________<br /><br /><br />Good luck on that one..

 

[gunsandrockets]

"On Mars, it may be the other way around. There most life may be located beneath the cryosphere which is several kilometers thick. Beneath this, it is warm enough for water to stay liquid and for there then to be enough diversity in life forms to form an actual interdependent ecosystem where life can thrive, vary and evolve with both symbiosis and competition." <br /><br />"It is the surface of Mars that represents the extremophile environment where only a select few life forms could have any chance of surviving, although probably not enough for an actual ecosystem. But this does not mean it is a dead end if there is a sub-cryosphere ecosystem and the surface extremophiles are merely the survivors of a migration route to the surface."<br /><br /><br />Outstanding. Nicely put.

 

[robnissen]

Very good post until the very end: "The atmosphere, even somewhat thicker, still can’t stop the deadly UV rays there." <br /><br />Since we are only talking about extremeophiles, some of those can withstand very high levels of UV. Thus, the fact that air pressure is higher in Valles Marineris makes a good place to look. Although, I do agree with you that underground certainly holds the most promise.<br /><br />One other point, "the present view that microbial mass exceeds the sum of other masses and resides in the subsurface" is not unchallenged. It is unknown at this time whether microbial mass exceeds the sum of the mass of trees (let alone all other masses). There are ardent views on both sides, and while it may turn out that microbial mass does outweigh trees, that has not been proven.

 

[gunsandrockets]

"[Mars] surface chemistry is more oxidizing than that found on the moon or outerspace."<br /><br />I've heard this many times and I've asked around some to find out just what this oxidizing agent is, and no one has yet given me an answer. But I found a paper that explains why no one seems to know...<br /><br />http://mars.spherix.com/spie2/Spie2001Oxides/Spie2001-oxides.htm <br /><br />It must be one pretty unusual oxidizing agent to leave so much magnetic material unoxidized in the Martian regolith! Maybe you can tell me what it is?

 

[serak_the_preparer]

<i>I know there is a real push to find life on mars but the surface of the planet doesn't seem like the best place. I beleive the best hope (if there is life) is below the surface.</i><br /><br />Some links to related material recently made available on-line. First up is an item from a couple of years ago:<br /><br />Evidence from the Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera for a frozen sea close to Mars' equator (pdf) by John B. Murray, Jan-Peter Muller, Gerhard Neukum, Stephanie C. Werner, et al (<i>Nature</i>, vol 434, 352-356, 17 March 2005)<br /><br />The <i>Nature</i> item also features some nice images. (See also Signs of a Frozen Sea (ESA) and Space.com's Ice Packs and Methane on Mars Suggest Present Life Possible by Robert Roy Britt.)<br /><br />And just the other day:<br /><br />Dig deeper to find Martian life by Alex Brew (University College London)<br /><br />(Since the above link is not all that easy on the eyes, same article can also be found at: Dig deeper to find Martian life)<br /><br />A round-up of some of this material makes up the BBC's Frozen sea may harbour Mars life.<br /><br />Here, by the way, is a pretty cool site concerning life's prospects on Mars: Life On Mars. The Life On Mars Gallery alone, for instance, makes the visit worthwhile.