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NASA's Mars News Is Not Life, But Perchlorate
leighklotz writes "In an update to the little green men story of not-life-on-Mars, NASA has twittered: 'The buzz this weekend was due to an interesting soil chemistry finding, still preliminary, but now avail here:' where 'here' is NASA Spacecraft Analyzing Martian Soil Data. The exciting bit: 'Within the last month, two samples have been analyzed by the Wet Chemistry Lab of the spacecraft's Microscopy, Electrochemistry, and Conductivity Analyzer, or MECA, suggesting one of the soil constituents may be perchlorate, a highly oxidizing substance.' Also, 'NASA will hold a media teleconference on Tuesday, Aug. 5, at 2 p.m. EDT, to discuss these recent science activities.'"
Perhaps I'm missing something obvious here, but how seriously are they considering the possibility of contamination? Because unless I'm remembering something wrong, perchlorates are most excellent oxidizers and hence commonly used in, oh, say, solid rocket fuel, among other things.
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Because it sure sounds like "whole heck 'o alot of rocket fuel just lying on top of frozen water on a planet with 38% of the gravity of Earth"
Sounds like it would make space travel / trips to / from Mars dramatically easier.
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He explained it to NASA over 40 years ago. There is no life on Mars because life would effect the atmosphere in ways discernible to us. There isn't any need to send missions to figure that out. It of course wasn't the answer NASA wanted from him. There could of course be evidence of life in the past, but it looks unlikely to have ever been the case. Still the missions to Mars on a hopeless search for life are cool.
Or maybe not, based on data from the Viking missions:
http://www.space.com/news/spacehistory/viking_life_010728-1.html
"Photos taken on Mars' surface of a Viking magnetic experiment on both landers show material clinging to the magnets. That suggests to Levin that whatever the surface processes are on Mars, they are not innately highly oxidizing. A highly oxidizing soil would convert magnetized materials to oxidized forms. Therefore, the magnet would be free of such particles.
"Similarly, the Mars Pathfinder mission in 1997, Levin added, also had significant amounts of magnetic material adhering to magnets attached to the spacecraft.
"Levin said that the paradigm of a Mars sterilized by a highly oxidizing surface is "too embedded in our scientific fabric to be set aside even by demonstrated proofs. He points to a John F. Kennedy quote that says 'the great enemy of truth is often not the lie --deliberate, contrived and dishonest -- but the myth -- persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.'"
Or maybe Twitter is more useful than the average Slashdotter wants to believe. I was baffled last time when I read the Slashdot reactions on Identi.ca and microblogging. Apparently people here have never heard of microblogging as a way to keep in touch with one's friends.
Viking explicitly tested for "biological activity" and had a false-positive result due to an oxidizing soil. I think they blamed it on a peroxide at that time, but Viking didnt have as accuratate analyszers as Phoenix has.
I recall it was Carl Sagan who suggested biological life was locally anti-entropic and one should look for chemical disequilibriums like free oxygen or methane. Over time these substances naturally move into lower energy states through chemical reactions if life wasn't present. However, planetary surfaces and interiors may not be closed energy systems. Mars soil is bombarded by solar UV; Io is heated by Jupiter tidal stress. These energy injections can create life-like chemical disequilibriums too.