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New and Old Experiments Combine To Help the Search For Life On Mars
jamie sends in a story about an unexpected finding by the Phoenix Mars Lander which has shed new light on experiments done by the Viking landers back in 1976. The Viking experiments found traces of chlorine compounds that were interpreted to be the result of contamination from cleaning fluids on Earth. In 2008, an experiment done by Phoenix found percholates in the soil, which came as a surprise to researchers. After doing tests on similar soil from Chile, a new study has found that those percholates, paired with organic molecules, could very well be the source of the chlorine compounds detected by Viking. While this is not direct evidence for life on Mars, the fact that complex organic compounds can apparently persist in the Martian soil gives researchers a new avenue to pursue while looking for that evidence.
Big typos: it should read perchlorate, not percholate.
The rovers already did! And you ain't gonna like it.
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
Perchlorate is an ion. You are thinking of potassium or sodium perchlorate. The article reported that perchlorate ions were detected, not necessarily what they were bound to.
In a related story, the article also reported that perchlorates would mask complicated organic molecules by breaking them down when the soil samples were heated up for testing, not that they were evidence for anything. So that's funny, too.
Guys, with this one you really need to RTFAs.
Free Martian Whores!
The tests were not precise to discern living chemical reactions or over-oxidized soils.
So? It's the reduction of the perchlorate that produces the energy needed for propulsion. This is the energy-intensive part of the fuel. Not to say that the cation is unimportant to the fuel characteristics...
And likely he was thinking of ammonium perchlorate, anyway.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
My daddy used to mix up potassium perchlorate and sulfur, and then stuff it into tin foil, about the size of a silver dollar. Then he would hit it with a sledge hammer, and, that noise will wake the neighbors!
So if Mars is packed with this stuff ... I'll be the first one to volunteer to go there.
NASA loading officer: "Um, sir, why are taking a sledge hammer, and a roll of tin foil on the mission to Mars?"
Me: "It's for some kind of, um, experiment, or something like that."
Looking for life on Mars? Who cares? Let's just blow the damned place up!
Bombing the Moon looks pretty wimpy compared to the potential that we have here.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
It should be easy to find life on mars. Just look for the spaceports that they used when they attacked Earth in 1938. Just in case, they should have a Slim Whitman record on hand.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
That's a serious question for the /. space geeks. The original Mars missions have been poster boys for bit rot and format obsolescence. Tales that the current missions had to rely on finding paper printouts that retired scientists hadn't thrown out yet. But it's always anecdotal. What's the true story with citable references?
No. It found him while looking for the Illudium Space Modulator.