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Viking Landers Might Have Missed Martian Organics

Posted by samzenpus on from the police-the-planet dept.

Sonny Yatsen writes "A new study suggests that the Viking Landers might have found organic compounds on Mars, but failed to recognize them because of the methodology used to detect organics. The findings may suggest specific strategies that would improve on the way organic compounds are detected on the red planet."

20 of 82 comments (clear)

  1. Morbo predicted this... by derGoldstein · · Score: 4, Funny

    Morbo predicted this...

    --
    Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.
  2. Another New Study... by DynaSoar · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ... suggests that Carl Sagan said exactly the same thing over three decades ago.

    --
    "I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
    1. Re:Another New Study... by MrEricSir · · Score: 2, Funny

      Makes sense, Sagan was all about the "organics," man.

      --
      There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
    2. Re:Another New Study... by MichaelSmith · · Score: 2, Funny

      Makes sense, Sagan was all about the "organics," man.

      Yeah no sex bots for him.

      --
      http://michaelsmith.id.au
    3. Re:Another New Study... by DerekLyons · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The difference being that Carl Sagan said it (and he said a lot of things), this study has shown it. One is PR puffery, one is science. There is a difference.

  3. Dupe? by leromarinvit · · Score: 2, Informative

    TFA says that any organic compounds which might have been found would have been destroyed by heating perchlorate to 200-500C. I remember reading something similar to this a while back here on /. (but I don't have a link handy).

    --
    Proud member of the Ferengi Socialist Party.
  4. The Post by sexconker · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Haha, I read this post on Slashdot a couple of minutes ago. Nice job, guy, completely ignoring the article and just rushing to get the first post.

    1. Re:The Post by blackraven14250 · · Score: 3, Informative

      They specifically mentioned this study, and how the Phoenix lander found perchlorates, and how Viking's info may have been wrong. There's nothing in the article that indicates anything different than the episode, which is why I posted the comment about the "speedy delivery" of the news by Science News. That episode is at least a couple months past shooting by now.

    2. Re:The Post by derGoldstein · · Score: 3, Funny

      That episode is at least a couple months past shooting by now.

      That might be a good basis for a conspiracy theory... NASA is afraid we wouldn't be able to handle all of the information in one go, so they release it gradually. They may have found a couple of goldfish on Europa, but the information isn't due to be published until late 2011. The appearance of this life-on-mars related news was released to two recipients, but at incorrect dates. Someone will lose their job over this. When in doubt, default to weather balloons....

      --
      Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.
  5. Re:The Universe by blair1q · · Score: 3, Insightful

    /. is no longer hip to the world.

    If it's "new to you" and you are reading the firehose, it gets clicked up, then the bots that have replaced the admins click on all the ones that are sticking up above all the others and they get conveyor-belted to the front page.

    Occasionally, the admin who snuck the "Idle" page in will grab one that tickles his cat's fancy, but that's about the only variation in the zombie conga line that passes for a meme stream here any more.

  6. Actually, they did by scorp1us · · Score: 5, Informative

    But NASA invalidated the tests

    The results of these experiments were complex. The first three gave positive results, but the complete absence of any organic compounds in the Martian soil according to the mass spectrometer experiment suggests that the positive results for the first three were not evidence for life, but rather evidence for a complex inorganic chemistry in the Martian soil. Thus, the Viking verdict was that there was no evidence for present or past life on Mars.

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    Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
    1. Re:Actually, they did by Chris+Burke · · Score: 2, Informative

      An interesting link. But, no, as it says, they didn't find organics. Finding organic (!= biological) compounds is what the 4th experiment was about and it came up negative (other than what they assumed were contaminants), and it's the results of that 4th experiment that are in question today.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    2. Re:Actually, they did by QuantumG · · Score: 3, Interesting

      until there's an actual organism located and cultured the correct response is skepticism.

      I, personally, think life doesn't just inhabit niches.. if there's life on Mars anywhere, there should be life on Mars everywhere.

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      How we know is more important than what we know.
    3. Re:Actually, they did by Chris+Burke · · Score: 4, Interesting

      until there's an actual organism located and cultured the correct response is skepticism.

      Not if we're just talking about organic compounds, which I and TFA are. Organic compounds have been found in all kinds of places where life is highly unlikely to exist, like Titan (which has oceans of methane) or gaseous nebulae.

      I, personally, think life doesn't just inhabit niches.. if there's life on Mars anywhere, there should be life on Mars everywhere.

      Eh. Everywhere there's sufficient food and energy, sure. If there's a Martian equivalent to deep-sea thermal vents, where life on earth is theorized to have started, then there might be life all around them but not on the surface where it's easy to find. Or maybe there was life on the surface while there was water there, but not it's no longer suitable.

      The point of this new analysis is to see if maybe Viking really did discover organics, and also to refine techniques for finding them so future missions can do a better job of searching for them. It could in fact be that there is evidence of (former) life everywhere, but we weren't been able to find it due to lacking the proper techniques before. The only way to know is to check.

      In the meantime, sure, skepticism is warranted. I'm not holding out for there being evidence of life on Mars. But I want to know, and this is an important step.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    4. Re:Actually, they did by Bigjeff5 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      1 is highly unlikely. Mars is losing its atmosphere at a rapid pace, and has no protection from bio-killing cosmic and solar radiation due to it's lack of a magnetic field. It has no magnetic field because the iron core solidified aeons ago - Mars is much smaller than Earth, and the thing simply cooled down faster.

      It is far more likely that the failing magnetic field would have triggered the death of all Martian life (and it definitely would have, solar radiation in particular is very nasty), and would explain why there is no life today if there ever was once life on Mars.

      2 only makes sense if 1 is true. On Earth we find life literally everywhere. Even in the most apparently barren places we have found life. They've found life in underground lakes in Antarctica that have been locked away by ice for thousands of years for god's sake! Even volcanic vents harbor life, it is literally everywhere on the planet. If Mars once had a thriving ecosystem, evidence of life should be everywhere as well. It really should not be difficult to find traces of it.

      --
      Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
  7. Re:The Universe by beakerMeep · · Score: 4, Funny

    Slashdot didn't properly detect it as a story. Probably due to methodology.

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    meep
  8. Re:The Universe by Lotana · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And yet despite all this, comparing to all others, it is still the best discussion site on the net.

  9. Re:Am I the only one who equated Vikings Landings. by rubycodez · · Score: 3, Funny

    ah, that explains the blue-eyed LGM. man those vikings were horny SOBs...

  10. Re:Methodology? The lander studied methods? by Chris+Burke · · Score: 2, Informative

    For christ's sake, 'methodology' is the study of methods. Stop using big words whose meaning you don't know!

    LOL, back at ya, genius.

    --

    The enemies of Democracy are
  11. Re:Methodology? The lander studied methods? by k8to · · Score: 2, Informative

    Your parent post is correct. Methodology is either the study of methods or a system or organized approach or set of methods. A few methods does not make a methodology at all.

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    -josh