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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Viking lander biological experiments | 4/4 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_lander_biological_experiments | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T13:26:28.096600+00:00 | kb-cron |
== Controversy == Before the discovery of the oxidizer perchlorate on Mars in 2008, some theories remained opposed to the general scientific conclusion. An investigator suggested that the biological explanation of the lack of detected organics by GC-MS could be that the oxidizing inventory of the H2O2-H2O solvent well exceeded the reducing power of the organic compounds of the organisms. It has also been argued that the Labeled Release (LR) experiment detected so few metabolising organisms in the Martian soil, that it would have been impossible for the gas chromatograph to detect them. This view has been put forward by the designer of the LR experiment, Gilbert Levin, who believes the positive LR results are diagnostic for life on Mars. He and others have conducted ongoing experiments attempting to reproduce the Viking data, either with biological or non-biological materials on Earth. While no experiment has ever precisely duplicated the Mars LR test and control results, experiments with hydrogen peroxide-saturated titanium dioxide have produced similar results. While the majority of astrobiologists still conclude that the Viking biological experiments were inconclusive or negative, Gilbert Levin is not alone in believing otherwise. The current claim for life on Mars is grounded on old evidence reinterpreted in the light of recent developments. In 2006, scientist Rafael Navarro demonstrated that the Viking biological experiments likely lacked sensitivity to detect trace amounts of organic compounds. In a paper published in December 2010, the scientists suggest that if organics were present, they would not have been detected because when the soil is heated to check for organics, perchlorate destroys them rapidly producing chloromethane and dichloromethane, which is what the Viking landers found. This team also notes that this is not a proof of life but it could make a difference in how scientists look for organic biosignatures in the future. Results from the current Mars Science Laboratory mission and the under-development ExoMars program may help settle this controversy. In 2006, Mario Crocco went as far as proposing the creation of a new nomenclatural rank that classified some Viking results as 'metabolic' and therefore representative of a new form of life. The taxonomy proposed by Crocco has not been accepted by the scientific community, and the validity of Crocco's interpretation hinged entirely on the absence of an oxidative agent in the Martian soil. According to Gilbert Levin and Patricia Ann Straat, investigators of the LR experiment, no explanation involving inorganic chemistry as of 2016 is able to give satisfactory explanations of the complete data from the LR experiment, and specifically address the question of what active agent on the soil samples could be adversely affected by heating to approximately 50 °C and destroyed with long-term storage in the dark at 10 °C, as data suggest.
== Critiques ==
=== Failure to examine the atmosphere === James Lovelock argued that the Viking mission would have done better to examine the Martian atmosphere than look at the soil. He theorised that all life tends to expel waste gases into the atmosphere, and as such it would be possible to theorise the existence of life on a planet by detecting an atmosphere that was not in chemical equilibrium. He concluded that there was enough information about Mars' atmosphere at that time to discount the possibility of life there. Since then, methane has been discovered in Mars' atmosphere at 10ppb, thus reopening this debate. Although in 2013 the Curiosity rover failed to detect methane at its location in levels exceeding 1.3ppb. later in 2013 and in 2014, measurements by Curiosity did detect methane, suggesting a time-variable source. The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, launched in March 2016, implements this approach and will focus on detection, characterization of spatial and temporal variation, and localization of sources for a broad suite of atmospheric trace gases on Mars and help determine if their formation is of biological or geological origin. The Mars Orbiter Mission has also been attempting – since late 2014 – to detect and map methane on Mars' atmosphere. Studies using the Trace Gas Orbiter and Curiosity have shown that methane is only detectable at night and therefore cannot be detected by the Trace Gas Orbiter which relies on sunlight for its measurements.
=== Effects of landing rockets === A press commentary argued that, if there was life at the Viking lander sites, it may have been killed by the exhaust from the landing rockets. That is not a problem for missions which land via an airbag-protected capsule, slowed by parachutes and retrorockets, and dropped from a height that allows rocket exhaust to avoid the surface. Mars Pathfinder's Sojourner rover and the Mars Exploration Rovers each used this landing technique successfully. The Phoenix Scout lander descended to the surface with retro-rockets, however, their fuel was hydrazine, and the end products of the plume (water, nitrogen, and ammonia) were not found to have affected the soils at the landing site.
== See also ==
== References ==
== Further reading ==
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