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Viking Mars Mission Might Have Missed Life
Johan Louwers writes "The Viking mars mission in 1976 might have missed signs of life due to not completely working analysis equipment. GC-MS on the Viking 1976 Mars missions did not detect organic molecules on the Martian surface, even those expected from meteorite bombardment. This result suggested that the Martian regolith might hold a potent oxidant that converts all organic molecules to carbon dioxide rapidly relative to the rate at which they arrive. This conclusion is influencing the design of Mars missions. We reexamine this conclusion in light of what is known about the oxidation of organic compounds generally and the nature of organics likely to come to Mars via meteorite."
...barring some bizarre deep-rock extremophiles.
1. Hard radiation on surface - not good.
2. Virtually zero atmosphere - not that good.
3. No (or little water) - not good.
4. Highly oxidising compounds on surface - very bad.
Each in themselves, not a show-stopper. Two - err... All of them == no life. Well, not as we know it (Jim - sorry).
As a biochemist, I wouldn't expect any form of life (AWKI) to survive those conditions; not even if I were allowed to tweak every other possible variable to the organism's advantage. It would be nice to be proved wrong - but I don't think so.
Mars missions are still extremely expensive, and there's a lot of wisdom behind analyzing past mistakes to make sure they don't happen again in future missions.
The optimism of life-seekers on Mars does not suprise me any longer. Just about every person I have heard quoted believes that either there is life on Mars, or there was in the past. The only dissent I've heard was from James Lovelock, who predicted _before_ the Viking missions that no life would be found on Mars, based on its infrared signature from space. Simply put, he said that on the one planet we know life exists, it has completely transformed our environment to such a degree that would be completely impossible (from the amount of unstable gases in our atmosphere, among other things) for an alien observer to miss it. If there was life on Mars, why has it been so utterly passive and gentle to its environment compared to life on earth?
I'm still convinced by that. I don't think life could have existed on Mars today without transforming its environment, and I don't think it could have existed in the past without leaving huge traces - and it would be very unlikely that it should die out, too. Life as we know it just doesn't behave like that.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
silly to base 2006 missions on results from a 30 year old set of space technology.
You think that's silly, wait until you find out what missions were based on 30 years ago!
But seriously, what _else_ are we going to base it on?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Which doesn't mean "it missed something!" Viking might have "missed something" and yet there still might not be life. It just means it isn't very conclusive so we should go back and look again.
One thing that I continually like to point out is that "life" at a basic level is agressively replicant. If there is any life that is a little successful, it explodes and tries to fill every nook and cranny and does it as fast as it can. If there is life anywhere on Mars it should be easy to find if we take a wide survey testing multiple places at multiple times of the Martian year. Just two tests isn't sufficient to call it either way.