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Mars Robot May Destroy Life It Was Sent To Find
Hugh Pickens writes "New Scientist reports that instead of identifying chemicals that could point to life, NASA's robot explorers may have been toasting them by mistake. Even if Mars never had life, comets and asteroids that have struck the planet should have scattered at least some organic molecules over its surface but landers have failed to detect even minute quantities of organic compounds. Now scientists say they may have stumbled on something in the Martian soil that may have, in effect, been hiding the organics: a class of chemicals called perchlorates. At low temperatures, perchlorates are relatively harmless but when heated to hundreds of degrees Celsius perchlorates release a lot of oxygen, which tends to cause any nearby combustible material to burn. The Phoenix and Viking landers looked for organic molecules by heating soil samples to similarly high temperatures to evaporate them and analyse them in gas form. When Douglas Ming of NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and colleagues tried heating organics and perchlorates like this on Earth, the resulting combustion left no trace of organics behind. "We haven't looked the right way," says Chris McKay of NASA's Ames Research Center. Jeffrey Bada of the University of California, San Diego, agrees that a new approach is needed. He is leading work on a new instrument called Urey which will be able to detect organic material at concentrations as low as a few parts per trillion. The good news is that, although Urey heats its samples, it does so in water, so the organics cannot burn up."
I suggest we send someone back in time to prevent the robot from killing the life on Mars.
comets and asteroids that have struck the planet should have scattered at least some organic molecules
Why would we expect comets or asteroids to carry organics? Haven't they been around much longer than life?
Mmm... organics boiled in water. Now I know what I'm having for lunch.
Play me online? Well you know that I'll beat you. If I ever meet you I'll "/sbin/shutdown -h now" you. -Weird Al, kinda.
So, instead of the Martians coming here, blowing stuff up and then catching a cold and dying out, we go there, give them heat and wipe them out first? I suppose the best defense really is a good offense!
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
OK, so now they are going to bring water to Mars as well? Might as well bring bacteria and other life as well and contaminate away..
c++;
This is a miserable fail on the part of humanity...
Wouldn't em with a wavelenght around 12.24 cm at 2.45 GHz have been quicker, and with a nice satisfying PING when done?
rewriting history since 2109
Some NASA engineer laughs quietly to himself, knowing he prematurely stopped the Martian invasion of Earth before it even had a chance to begin.
Also, did I ever tell you the time I was a programmer for Microsoft and worked on DOS? I have a funny anecdote about it that'd be completely true, if it weren't false.
Organic "compounds" can be created (and often are) through other processes other than life. So, even if there were NO life on Mars, there should be some organic compounds. The fact that they are not finding any, combined with the finding of perchlorates (i.e. used for rocket fuel, explosives, etc) shows that there is something wrong with their experimental set-up.
Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
I see it odd they didn't even test the chemical detector process in realistic simulant soil before launching it to Mars . . .
You come in peaces... :P
So we might have been inadvertently killing alien life? Like in Ender's Game, only we're killing them.
It's got to be terrible, finding out after 5 years that the process you've been using was destroying the very thing you were seeking out.
This is the discussion about the man with ovucidal sperm, right?
So if there should be organic molecules present from comets, then what does it prove if we find them with the new test? It seems to me, that if we proved the test inaccuracte because there must be organics, then how does it prove there was life if there are organics? It sounds like we just spent a whole lot of effort to prove the experiemt was flawed.
For the benefit of new readers and the general perspective; an old short-story by Terry Bisson: http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/96q1/meat.html
It's a "must read" if you haven't, just give in and click the link.
They've built a perchlorate percolator?
implies that it destroyed all life on the planet (the "life it was sent to find"). Instead, it sounds like its life detector merely destroys signs of life in the samples it's testing.
Clever:
Previous test where negative, but flawed. So give us another billion and we will produce the new flawed life on Mars test.
...but I think I just invented a new form of birth control. Just from a quick look over Wikipedia, and what I remember from college biology, there's multiple enzymatic exchanges between sperm and egg before fertilization can complete. So, it should be possible to engineer a relatively simple, non-hormonal drug for men to take, which would prevent sperm from being produced all of the necessary enzymes (or purposefully carry an improper, but similarly binding enzyme), which could effectively kill any receptive egg that the sperm came in contact with, rather than fertilizing it.
Or am I completely delusional and in need of biology refresher courses? (it's entirely possible...)
What NASA now tried to tell, is that they went to Mars with technology what wasn't tested on the Earth at all.
We have very expensive small machine on Mars, what we use by remote control and delays of hours. And all what we can find out is that tests what it was doing, can not be succeed even on here on Earth!
Great... So what is left to hand? Nice photos of Mars? Are those even real?
We have so much problems to get even the satelites work on the Earth orbit by using current technology. And still decades ago we supposly went to moon landing and now we should be studying on the Mars and we fail on that too?
And still we have more serious and basic problems on earth what could be solved with that money what is used to Mars study. If we just would want to.
1-told you so!
2-this is why you don`t send a robot to do a Mans job
3-epic fail
or my personal favorite
4-Hahahahahahhahahahahahahahaha
robots? cheap? get off my lawn!!, you just wasted 3 decades dumbasses.
yes!, I am for Manned spaceflight, NOT damn stupid overgrown Tonka toys and peoples excessive faith in em.
The title is very misleading.
No-one thought that heating samples to 400 or 600 C would be good for any bacteria. The point is that they thought samples would outgas any organics. Now it seems they might be burned in the process. But in neither case were these tests designed to keep microbes alive.
Note that one implication here is that Martian soil will burn even under Martian conditions if you heat it properly - it has its own oxygen supply.
Martian bonfires anyone ?
Oo-Ray anyone? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terrible_Secret_of_Turtle_Bay
I guess this was Rocket Science after all! Perhaps they should have called in the real rocket scientists to test this!
from the planet Omicron Persei 8 and I want revenge for you have been killing our offspring in the nursery planet you Humans call Mars.
So NASA creates a probe which is sent to find life but instead destroys it...
...I think I heard this story once or twice before...
Advice: on VPS providers
Cant we just put a strong microscope on these things?
I have never been a big fan of Martians since that incident at Grover's Mill that was covered up.
Burn aliens, burn!
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Ah, the Human way of finding life:
Astronaut 1: "So, any signs of life?"
Astronaut 2: *shooting a flamethrower at the ground* "None."
Astronaut 1: "Ok, just to be sure let's blow everything up and scan the debris."
In Cosmos, Carl Sagan mentions an experiment that got scrubbed off of the Viking probes because of a lack of room. I forget the scientist who cooked up the idea (Wolf-something??), but it was really simple. Send up a container of food for whatever life you're expecting, throw some dirt in their, and see if anything develops. It was basically a petri dish for Mars.
The Force potential of an individual was measured in sentient creatures by a midi-chlorian count. While both the Jedi and the Sith used the Force to gain their power, there were as many different groups of users and views of the Force as uses of the Force itself.
I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid. You're afraid of us. You're afraid of change.
We weren't very concerned about bringing horses, gunpowder and smallpox to the New World. And that 'only' killed millions of people.
Yes, we should be careful, and yes, any definitive signs of life should be preserved as well as possible. But we really need to get over ourselves. If a Mars colony destroys bacteria which might evolve into life a billion years from now, then so be it. The survival and prosperity of the human race is far more important than a few microbes under a rock.
Sounds like a major plot point of the old 60's movie "Robinson Crusoe on Mars", where the protagonist, a stranded astronaut, discovers that some rocks he found to put around his fire, release oxygen when heated (he discovers that just as he's running out of his bottled air). Sounds like it might be worth looking at as an oxygen source for colonies, if it produces enough O2 to be useful.
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
The ultimate device to detect life on mars:
The Uri geller device.
Its better then the Urey device and comes with a free spoon!
So you can digg into the soil there.
I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid. You're afraid of us. You're afraid of change.
So in War of the Worlds when they tried to vaporize Tom Cruise, they were really just looking for life?
"Any life out there?"
"No, Captain, just a lot of small dust clouds. Nothing of interest yet."
"Well, let me know if we find anything."
...
ZZZZZZRRRRROWT
Their may be a grammatical error, misspeling, or evn a typo in this post.
Might as well bring bacteria and other life as well and contaminate away..
Yes we already did that so what is the next step? ... profit? http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/08/the-dirt-on-mar/
Dr. Ming will be missed.
I don't want to set Mars on fire,
I just want to start a flame in its soil.
In my heart I have but one desire
And that's perchlorate, no other will boil.
I've lost all ambition for Earthly acclaim
I just want to find some oxygen
And with the emissions with applied flame,
I'll have found the little Martian men, believe me!
I don't want to set Mars on fire,
I just want to start a flame in its soil!
The good news is that, although Urey heats its samples, it does so in water, so the organics cannot burn up.
The bad news is that Urey is in San Diego, and not Mars.
Anyone who says slashdot isn't a game isn't paying attention.
"It was never meant to be a game!"
Mars Robot May Drown Life It Was Sent To Find.
Researchers now believe that throttling, smothering, and using a machete is the safest way to discover if there is indeed life on Mars.
Also in the news - Why do aliens hate us so much?
Maybe there is just no life on Mars.
I had this great quote in my head, and I'm reading through the ~100 comments on the page thinking "YES! No one's said that yet!"... then I found yours at the very bottom.
You've gotta love the mindset of "We didn't validate our hypothesis, our tests must be flawed."
Funny may not give karma, but +5 Informative never made anyone snort coffee out their nose.
It heats its sample in water. So it heats the frog slowly?
Don't you need to send water to Mars to do this new test?
And just by sending these probes to Mars, don't we pretty much send a couple bacteria there, some of them theoretically can survive? What if we planted the life on Mars that we are looking to find? After all, the fact that we have successfully put down these robots onto the ground gently enough that they are sending back scientific evidence could be enough to ensure that any stow-away life was shielded from the effects of entering the atmosphere...
Maybe this is a good thing, though... Maybe we have ensured that life will take hold on Mars, should we nuke the earth into oblivion.
Wow, NASA needs to hire a chemist. If you heat organics with perchloric acid in water, they still oxidize down to CO2...
If there is one thing humans are good at it's killing life. And no I am not some hippy ecologist. Just stating a fact. :P
"Without curiosity and knowledge, the mind is a vast void. Without the mind, curiosity and knowledge are nonexistent."
...maybe it's time to take it off?
Actually this proves that not only was there life, but intelligent life at that. They evolved, developed space flight, and left before the lower life forms on Earth arrived. The perchlorates are simply contamination for rocket fuel.
Sounds as likely as some of the other theories I've read lately.