Simple hydrogen peroxide lifeforms.
Posted on 08/23/2007 9:20:12 AM PDT by LibWhacker
The soil on Mars may contain microbial life!
Joop Houtkooper of the University of Giessen, Germany, will declare on Friday the Viking spacecraft may have found signs of a weird life form based on hydrogen peroxide on the subfreezing, arid Martian surface.
His analysis of one of the experiments carried out by the Viking spacecraft suggests that 0.1 percent of the Martian soil could be of biological origin.
That is roughly comparable to biomass levels found in some Antarctic permafrost, home to a range of hardy bacteria and lichen.
Developing....
Mars Attacks!
I bet they’re Democrats
And nothing has evolved, huh? Hmmmm. :-)
Doesn't sound very promising to me. I guess they've tried looking at the soil with a microscope to see if anything is moving around? That'd be a certain sign of life anyway.
I wonder if there’s a race of Bill Mahers oozing about up there.
However the fetus on earth remains a glob of cells that can be desposed of by a woman’s choice.
“life form based on hydrogen peroxide “
Wow, bet they bubble up when poured on a wound.
.....Bob
Waitaminit...Viking??? The landers that reached Mars in 1976??? Didn’t those landers stop working decades ago?
I love the hydrogen peroxide angle. If it turns out to be true, we’ll know for certain it wasn’t caused by cross-contamination!
desposed = disposed
Which Viking mission is this? The probe sent to do digging does not reach mars until september 18 of 2008.
Has Russia made a claim on Mars-Oil-Rights yet?
Martian soil may contain life
By Ben Hirschler in London
August 24, 2007 01:23amThe search for life on Mars appeared to hit a dead end in 1976 when Viking landers touched down on the red planet and failed to detect biological activity.
But Joop Houtkooper of the University of Giessen, Germany, said the spacecraft may in fact have found signs of a weird life form based on hydrogen peroxide on the subfreezing, arid Martian surface.
His analysis of one of the experiments carried out by the Viking spacecraft suggests that 0.1 per cent of the Martian soil could be of biological origin.
That is roughly comparable to biomass levels found in some Antarctic permafrost, home to a range of hardy bacteria and lichen.
“It is interesting because one part per thousand is not a small amount,” Mr Houtkooper said.
“We will have to find confirmatory evidence and see what kind of microbes these are and whether they are related to terrestrial microbes.
"It is a possibility that life has been transported from Earth to Mars or vice versa a long time ago.”
Speculation about such interplanetary seeding was fuelled a decade ago when researchers said an ancient meteorite found in Antarctica contained evidence of fossil life on Mars.
Doubt has since been cast on that finding.
Mr Houtkooper is presenting his research to the European Planetary Science Congress in Potsdam, Germany.
Life, but not as we know it
While most scientists think our next-door neighbour in the solar system is lifeless, the discovery of microbes on Earth that can exist in environments previously thought too hostile has fuelled debate over extraterrestrial life.
Mr Houtkooper believes Mars could be home to just such “extremophiles” - in this case, microbes whose cells are filled with a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and water, providing them with natural anti-freeze.
They would be quite capable of surviving a harsh Martian climate where temperatures rarely rise above freezing and can fall to minus 150C.
Mr Houtkooper believes their presence would account for unexplained rises in oxygen and carbon dioxide when NASA's Viking landers incubated Martian soil.
He bases his calculation of the biomass of Martian soil on the assumption that these gases were produced during the breakdown of organic material.
Scientists hope to gather further evidence on whether or not Mars ever supported life when NASA's next-generation robotic spacecraft, the Phoenix Mars Lander, reaches the planet in May 2008 and probes the soil near its northern pole.
They took another look at 1970’s Viking data
Probably contamination from our probe . They should be washed with soap and water after each use.
Me too...imagine, a planet full of blondes!
Simple hydrogen peroxide lifeforms.
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