Study Suggests Viking Lander Found Organics On Mars - MSNBC/DiscoveryNews

[WillyT]

Study suggests Viking lander found organics on Mars
Re-enactment with soil from Chile repeats results reported 34 years ago
By Irene Klotz
updated 1/4/2011 12:40:40 PM ET

<snip>

More than 30 years after NASA's Viking landers found no evidence for organic materials on Mars, scientists say a new experiment on Mars-like soil shows Viking did, in fact, hit pay dirt.

The new study was prompted by the August 2008 discovery of powerful oxygen-busting compounds known as perchlorates at the landing site of another Mars probe called Phoenix.

Scientists repeated a key Viking experiment using perchlorate-enhanced soil from Chile's Atacama Desert, which is considered one of the driest and most Marslike places on Earth, and found telltale fingerprints of combusted organics — the same chemicals Viking scientists dismissed as contaminants from Earth.

"Contrary to 30 years of perceived wisdom, Viking did detect organic materials on Mars," planetary scientist Christopher McKay, with NASA's Ames Research Center in California, told Discovery News. "It's like a 30-year-old cold case suddenly solved with new facts."

"If the Viking team had said 'Well, maybe there's perchlorate in the soil,' everybody would have said they're crazy — why would there be perchlorates in the soil? It was only by having it pushed on us by Phoenix where we had no alternative but to conclude that there was perchlorate in the soil. … Once you realize it's there, then everything makes sense," McKay added.

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More: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40910966/ns/technology_and_science-science/

:kick:

[villager]

1. What's next? "Oh -- and it was really a 'face,' too!"

:shrug:

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. The face is light conditions

right light conditions, there is a face on mars. Ain't optics amazing?

Next step will be life on Europa I suspect.

[villager]

6. Yes, sadly it seems to be optics and light...

Which is, of course, a more practical, if less interesting, explanation.

One wonders, hoever, what else is "hidden" in the data and photos we have, so far...

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. I don't think they are hiding anything

reality is science at times is slow going.

[villager]

8. Maybe. Though you have to imagine that if they found proof of off-planet life

....they might not rush to tell the public "all they know..."

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. They have told us a few times

or you forgot the announcement of the bacterial fossil found on a rock that came from Mars?

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lpi/meteorites/life.html

Clinton even made a big production of it.

This... they truly believed it was earth based contamination. So when they got it from a second probe... well then... either procedures are really bad, or percholates are common on the red planet.

[villager]

10. So, Nadin, is it your contention that NASA has stated, unequivocally, that off-planet life exists,

...and we just haven't actually "heard" the news?

It's an interesting viewpoint. I think NASA has been hedging their bets, so far, and I'm not sure anything "slam-dunk" unequivocal has been discovered or, at least, publicly talked about yet...

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. The bacteria fossil was the moment they told us

that it was a very strong possibity. Here is the statement

President Clinton Statment Regarding Mars Meteorite Discovery



THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
August 7, 1996

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
UPON DEPARTURE

The South Lawn
1:15 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Good afternoon. I'm glad to be joined by my science and technology adviser, Dr. Jack Gibbons, to make a few comments about today's announcement by NASA.
This is the product of years of exploration and months of intensive study by some of the world's most distinguished scientists. Like all discoveries, this one will and should continue to be reviewed, examined and scrutinized. It must be confirmed by other scientists. But clearly, the fact that something of this magnitude is being explored is another vindication of America's space program and our continuing support for it, even in these tough financial times. I am determined that the American space program will put it's full intellectual power and technological prowess behind the search for further evidence of life on Mars.

First, I have asked Administrator Goldin to ensure that this finding is subject to a methodical process of further peer review and validation. Second, I have asked the Vice President to convene at the White House before the end of the year a bipartisan space summit on the future of America's space program. A significant purpose of this summit will be to discuss how America should pursue answers to the scientific questions raised by this finding. Third, we are committed to the aggressive plan we have put in place for robotic exploration of Mars. America's next unmanned mission to Mars is scheduled to lift off from the Kennedy Space Center in November. It will be followed by a second mission in December. I should tell you that the first mission is scheduled to land on Mars on July the 4th, 1997 -- Independence Day.

It is well worth contemplating how we reached this moment of discovery. More than 4 billion years ago this piece of rock was formed as a part of the original crust of Mars. After billions of years it broke from the surface and began a 16 million year journey through space that would end here on Earth. It arrived in a meteor shower 13,000 years ago. And in 1984 an American scientist on an annual U.S. government mission to search for meteors on Antarctica picked it up and took it to be studied. Appropriately, it was the first rock to be picked up that year -- rock number 84001.

Today, rock 84001 speaks to us across all those billions of years and millions of miles. It speaks of the possibility of life. If this discovery is confirmed, it will surely be one of the most stunning insights into our universe that science has ever uncovered. Its implications are as far-reaching and awe-inspiring as can be imagined. Even as it promises answers to some of our oldest questions, it poses still others even more fundamental.

We will continue to listen closely to what it has to say as we continue the search for answers and for knowledge that is as old as humanity itself but essential to our people's future.

Thank you.

As more work has been done the scientific community is torn as it where, but from following the ahem discussion... yes... it looks like it is.

Reality is definite, 100% yes it is out there, will require more than what we have to convince most folks. Me... Drake's Equation is clear, and all those exo planets, a few on life zones... yes we will find it... or rather VERY STRONG EVIDENCE... until we physically find something that waves back...

But I do not think they have hid anything from you. Now once all this is privatized... will they hide things from you? Do bears shit in the woods? Does the sun rise in the East?

[Davis_X_Machina]

13. It looks just like Lee Harvey Oswald, too.... n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Mars had life

it was a life bearing world... slowly the evidence is mounting. We are not alone. And that will change how we believe, I think.

Oh and a few of the man walked with dinos folks will blissfully ignore this.

[arcane1]

4. Too bad Carl Sagan isn't around for news like this

:(

[WillyT]

5. Wow... Great Point !!!

:yourock:

:hi:

[DavidDvorkin]

12. Great! I'm glad I was part of that mission.

[IDemo]

14. Cool. In what kind of role?

[DavidDvorkin]

15. Lander navigation

I was part of a three-man team that wrote the software used to calculate the deorbit burn, so that the lander would land within the designated area.

We developed the software here in Denver on a CDC computer. Then we went to JPL and converted it to run on a Univac 1108 there. That was the version that was used during the mission.

By the time of the launch, having done my job well, I was given a hearty slap on the back, effusive thanks, and laid off. Ah, the aerospace biz!

[IDemo]

16. How does debugging work for code meant to be executed in an alien environment?

I'm used to running tests on consumer electronics hardware with the latest firmware releases in various environments, including liquid nitrogen cooled chambers. I can imagine the control of thrust might require some finessing of variables to avoid disaster.

[DavidDvorkin]

17. This was all run on Earth

On the Univac 1108 in JPL. The output was translated by someone else into commands that were uplinked to the lander's onboard systems.

It was coded in Fortran. At that time, the CDC computer in Denver and the 1108 in JPL were considered very big and very powerful machines.

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. I gotta laugh

Univac 1108 were considered very big and powerful. These days I suspect the functions on those things could be done by an IPOD these days.

And yes, we should thank that same space program for that.

[DavidDvorkin]

25. No kidding

The kind of computer power I have at my disposal in various machines in my house dwarfs what took up huge rooms and required fleets of priestly attendants back in those days.

[bemildred]

18. The real world is always the final test.

We tend to forget that, but we should not.

[DavidDvorkin]

26. Well, we didn't get any second chances!

[bemildred]

20. Look, it's just ridiculous to suggest that the only life in the universe is here.

It's just not that special.

[nadinbrzezinski]

23. Nope but science requires some rules

I am happy that the evidence is stacking up though.

[marmar]

21. Good. Let me off this rock......

..... there's got to be intelligent life somewhere.

[Cleita]

22. I lived in the Atacama desert at 11,000 feet altitude.

I remember when the first pictures came from Mars thinking how much it looked like where I once lived. However, even at 11,000 feet this was once the bottom of an ancient ocean. My playmates and I often found the fossils of sea creatures in some of the ravines we explored behind the mining camp we lived in. So there was organic ocean life there at one time, however, is it possible that Mars once had oceans? I wonder.

[nadinbrzezinski]

24. That is one of the going theories actually

but when the planet lost atmosphere, due to lower gravity... poof goes most of the ocean. Why they have found water on the poles, mostly frozen.

I have been following this since oh HS when this became a science project. Mostly presenting to the class on both Viking and Voyager.