Posted on 10/15/2019 6:30:55 AM PDT by Red Badger
We may have already discovered the essence of life on Mars 40 years ago, according to a former NASA scientist. Gilbert V. Levin, who was principal investigator on a NASA experiment that sent Viking landers to Mars in 1976, published an article in the ScientificAmerican journal last Thursday, arguing the experiment's positive results were proof of life on the red planet.
The experiment, called Labeled Release, was designed to test Martian soil for organic matter. "It seemed we had answered that ultimate question," Levin wrote in the article.
In the experiment, the Viking probes placed nutrients in Mars soil samples -- if life were present, it would consume the food and leave gaseous traces of its metabolism, which radioactive monitors would then detect. To make sure it was a biological reaction, the test was repeated after cooking the soil, which would prove lethal to known life. If there was a measurable reaction in the first and not the second sample, that would suggest biological forces at work -- and that's exactly what happened, according to Levin.
However, other experiments failed to find any organic material and NASA couldn't duplicate the results in their laboratory -- so they dismissed the positive result as false positives, some unknown chemical reaction rather than proof of extraterrestrial life.
"NASA concluded that the LR had found a substance mimicking life, but not life," said Levin in his article. "Inexplicably, over the 43 years since Viking, none of NASA's subsequent Mars landers has carried a life detection instrument to follow up on these exciting results."
But now, decades later, there are more and more promising signs. NASA's Curiosity rover found organic matter on Mars in 2018, and just last week it found sediments that suggest there were once ancient salty lakes on the surface of Mars.
(Excerpt) Read more at edition.cnn.com ...
If you look to the left side, just right of the bird image, you’ll see a Dalek.
“NASA couldn’t duplicate the results in their laboratory”
How do you duplicate the results in a laboratory on Earth? I don’t get it. I don’t think they ever had a Mars sample-return mission or is that wrong? Seems like you need Martian soil.
Freegards
That’s right.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.