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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.
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!
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 . . .
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.
Why would we expect comets or asteroids to carry organics? Haven't they been around much longer than life?
Atheism is a religion to the same extent that not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Wouldn't you want to use an IR Spectrometer?
I'm actually somewhat surprised that we've never sent one up to Mars, given that you can find one in most research facilities today.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
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 ?
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."
Your cup of spunk is in the mail.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
I am not sticking that part of myself into an oven, if that's what you're getting at.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Or better yet, just cut back your armed forces by 10%
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
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