Posted on 08/23/2007 5:21:58 PM PDT by blam
Scientists found life on Mars back in the 70s
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor Last Updated: 6:01pm BST 23/08/2007
The soil on Mars may indeed be teeming with microbes, according to a new interpretation of data first collected more than 30 years ago.
Mars could be home to “extremophiles”
The 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.
There was another flurry of excitement a decade later, when Nasa thought it had found evidence of life in a Mars meteorite but doubts have since been cast on that finding.
Today, Joop Houtkooper from Justus-Liebig-University in Giessen, Germany, will claim the Viking spacecraft may in fact have encountered 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 with a geophysicist, Dirk Schulze-Makuch of Washington State University, Pullman, suggests that 0.1 percent of the Martian soil could be of biological origin, he will tell the European Planetary Science Congress in Potsdam, Germany.
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,” Houtkooper said yesterday.
“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.”
The discovery of microbes on Earth that can exist in environments previously thought too hostile has fuelled debate over extraterrestrial life.
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.
Such a mixture would provide at least three clear benefits to organisms in the cold, dry Martian environment.
Its freezing point is as low as -56.5 C (depending on the concentration of peroxide); below that temperature it becomes firm but does not form cell-destroying crystals, as water ice does; and hydrogen peroxide is hygroscopic, which means it attracts water vapour from the atmosphere - a valuable trait on a planet where liquid water is rare.
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.
Hydrogen peroxide is also a powerful oxidant. When released from dying cells, it would sharply lower the amount of organic material in their surroundings.
This would help explain why Viking’s gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer detected no organic compounds on the surface of Mars.
This result has also been questioned recently by Rafael Navarro-Gonzalez from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico in Mexico City University of Mexico, who reported that similar instruments and methodology are unable to detect organic compounds in places on Earth, such as Antarctic dry valleys, where we know soil microorganisms exist.
The twin spacecraft, Viking 1 and Viking II, landed on the Red Planet in 1976. They were equipped with detectors designed to test the Martian soil for evidence of life.
The main instrument, called the TV-GC-MS assay, rapidly heated and vaporised soil for analysis by a spectrometer.
Dr Navarro-Gonzales concluded: “The fact that no organic molecules were released .. during the analysis of the Mars soils does not demonstrate that there were no organic materials on the surface of Mars..”
“We suggest that the design of future organic instruments for Mars should include other methods to be able to detect extinct and or extant life.”
I think this guy, Joop, is a parapsychologist. Extreme skepticism is warranted.
Interesting.
The Phoenix lander could check out whether there is life on Mars. That lander is set to arrive on Mars around May 2008.
I suppose it is hard to be credible with a name like: “Joop Houtkooper”.
If this were true, the MSM and the scientific community would have been beating this to death over the past thirty plus years.
Micheil Chrichton knew it all along.
sorry but anyone who goes by this name needs to be viewed with scepticism
The lead designer of the Viking bio detector experiments has maintained that the results, while not what was expected, were not inconsistent with the detection of life. NASA spent a lot of time generating an alternative hypothesis for the positive results.
Extreme skepticism is my default position on about everythying, including this. But the science from that lander was been very interesting and I've always had the suspicion that embarrassing (that is to say, not easily explainable) data were swept under the rug. There have been credible scientists with credible-sounding names who have argued all along evidence of life was found. (I'd have to research the details to refresh my memory but a lot has been published about this).
Man, that movie wierded me out for a long time...
I remember the lander and the evidence. It was pretty exiting stuff. I’m just sceptical about this particular claim that there is definitive proof that scientists have overlooked since the “scientist” in question deals in parapsychology. I would guess he’s hardly trained to make that judgement.
Joop Houtkooper
“sorry but anyone who goes by this name needs to be viewed with scepticism”
Spiro Agnew.
Newt Gingrich.
Englebert Humperdink.
Houtkooper is German. They probably think the name Joe is weird. lol
Life on Mars Likely, Scientist Claims
SPACE.com | 8/3/2004 | Leonard David
Posted on 08/03/2004 7:22:02 PM EDT by Dallas59
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1184397/posts
NASA Researches Claim Evidence of Present Life on Mars
Space News | Feb. 16, 2005 | Brian Berger
Posted on 02/16/2005 2:35:13 PM EST by PresbyRev
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1344592/posts
13 things that do not make sense
New Scientist | 19 March 2005 | Michael Brooks
Posted on 03/17/2005 1:25:36 PM EST by ShadowAce
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1364833/posts
Viking Landers May Have Missed Martian Life
New Scientist | 10-23-2006 | Mark Buchanan - David L Chandler
Posted on 10/23/2006 10:14:16 PM EDT by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1724685/posts
The Viking Labeled Release Experiment and Life on MarsMany hypotheses have been advanced and tested in attempts to account for the well-characterized activity detected in the surface material of Mars by the LR experiment. As shown above, these hypotheses have themselves been found wanting. The demonstrated success of the LR and the exquisite sensitivity with which it has detected microorganisms during its extensive test program with its record of no false positives can no longer be denied. No non-biological approach published, or known to the author, has duplicated the LR Mars data. Some laboratory experiments have produced positive responses, but the detailed thermal sensitivity exhibited by the variety of controls conducted on Mars has remained elusive in all such tests compatible with martian conditions. On the other hand, a combination of known properties of microorganisms, perhaps even those possessed by single species, could reproduce all aspects of the LR data. The biological interpretation of the Mars LR results is left standing alone. Recent discoveries of life forms thriving in extraordinarily severe environments on Earth strongly indicate that any alien organisms arriving on Mars might well and widely adapt to their new home. Application of the scientific principle leads to a conclusion: the Viking LR experiment detected living microorganisms in the soil of Mars.
by Gilbert V. Levin
That's pretty close to 'just us, darling' university - which is somewhat humorous given the subject matter...
;>)
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