Dirk Schulz-Makuh: Signs of life found on the Red Planet 50 years ago
Alien life was found on Mars 50 years ago, but NASA accidentally destroyed it, claims a German scientist. According to the scientist, he claims that during the experiments of the NASA Viking mission on the Red Planet, life was discovered half a century ago. However, he argues, during the tests, water entered the Martian soil, which probably drowned out any life.
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NASA may have discovered alien life on Mars 50 years ago when it first sent two of its Viking landers to the Red Planet, but the agency may also have accidentally destroyed it. According to the Daily Mail, these claims were made by Dirk Schulze-Makuch of the Technical University of Berlin, who believes that an experiment conducted in the 1970s, in which the addition of water to the soil drowned out any life lurking in the Martian landscape.
The test, known as the Viking Labeled Release experiment, initially tested positive for metabolism, but a related study found no trace of organic material.
Dirk Schulze-Makuch believes that water containing nutrient solution in the soil may have been too liquid, «and [all life] died out after a while.»
While these theories may seem outlandish to some, the Daily Mail notes, this refers to the microbes living inside the salt rocks in the Atacama , whose terrain is Martian-like, who don't need rain to survive — and too much water would destroy them.
Two landers as part of NASA's Viking mission landed on Mars on July 20, 1976 («Viking 1») and September 3, 1976 («Viking 2»), recalls the Daily Mail. The landers were equipped with a variety of instruments, including a gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer, an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer, a seismometer, a meteorological instrument, and color stereo cameras. The instruments allowed them to look for possible signs of life and study the physical and magnetic properties of the soil and atmosphere.
Schulze-Makuch called the results «puzzling» in an article for BigThink, in which he shared that one of the tests was positive and the other was negative for gas exchange. However, a small amount of chlorinated organics was found.
If the life test was positive, water was added to the soil to see if respiration and metabolism products appeared.
The theory was that if there was life on Mars, microorganisms would consume nutrients and release radioactive carbon as a gas.
In a 2007 study, an astronomy professor suggested that Martian life could contain peroxide in its cells hydrogen.
«This adaptation would have particular advantages in the Martian environment, providing a low freezing point, a source of oxygen, and hygroscopicity,» wrote Schultz-Makuch and co-author Joop M. Houtcooper in the study.
< p>“If we assume that local Martian life could adapt to the environment by incorporating hydrogen peroxide into their cells, this could explain the results of the Vikings,” notes Dirk Schulze-Makuch. “If Martian cells contained hydrogen peroxide, it would kill Moreover, this would cause the hydrogen peroxide to react with any organic molecules in the vicinity to form large amounts of carbon dioxide, which is exactly what the instrument found.”
Another experiment, pyrolytic release, tested for organic synthesis, also gave a positive result. This test mixed carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide from the Earth to see if the carbon would be incorporated into the soil.
Viking landers detected chlorinated organics, but scientists speculated that these untreated landers may have contaminated «Hitchhikers» brought from Earth writes the Daily Mail.
«However, subsequent missions have confirmed the presence of local organic compounds on Mars, albeit in chlorinated form,» wrote Dirk Schulze-Makuch. «Life on Mars could have adapted to an arid environment by living in salty rocks and absorbing water directly from the atmosphere. Viking experiments that included adding water to soil samples could have suppressed these potential microbes, causing them to die.»< /p>
The landers continued their missions until the final transmission of data to Earth on November 11, 1982 («Viking-1») and April 11, 1980 («Viking-2»), but to this day are still on Mars.