18 ms·

I’m Convinced We Found Evidence of Life on Mars in the 1970s

477 points by simulate 7y ago

eindiran 7y ago
It looks like a lot of people think the presence of the oxidizer perchlorate is the cause of the false positive, but there isn't consensus yet. ``` On August 2008, the Phoenix lander detected perchlorate, a strong oxidizer when heated above 200 °C. This was initially thought to be the cause of a false positive LR result. However, results of experiments published in December 2010 propose that organic compounds "could have been present" in the soil analyzed by both Viking 1 and 2, since NASA's Phoenix lander in 2008 detected perchlorate, which can break down organic compounds. The study's authors found that perchlorate can destroy organics when heated and produce chloromethane and dichloromethane as byproduct, the identical chlorine compounds discovered by both Viking landers when they performed the same tests on Mars. Because perchlorate would have broken down any Martian organics, the question of whether or not Viking found organic compounds is still wide open, as alternative chemical and biological interpretations are possible. ... 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. ```[0] It's funny that perchlorate is likely what confounded the LR experiment, as the discovery of perchlorate in the soil made a lot of folks less optimistic about life being able to survive on the Martian surface.[1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_lander_biological_experiments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_lander_biological_exper... [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5500590/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5500590/
- labster 7y ago
  Yep, definitely ironic that an oxidant like perchlorate reduced the chance of finding life. You’ve been a great audience, I’ll be here for the next 7 sols!
ropiwqefjnpoa 7y ago
IDK, what would be the motive to hide that?
- eindiran 7y ago
  I don't think Levin is making the claim that NASA knows that there is life on Mars and that there is a conspiracy to cover it up. They both are looking at the same results and (honestly) coming to different conclusions. Part of this is that it's expensive to do experiments on Mars, and space is limited. Each experiment you choose to do excludes you from doing others, so NASA has evaluated the evidence and doesn't think its the most efficient thing to pursue right now. Levin is trying to convince folks that the evidence is sufficient to warrant pursuing further experiments that would clarify what is going on here.
- chadcmulligan 7y ago
  To hide the lizard peoples secret base
  - dang 7y ago
    Please stop posting unsubstantive comments here.
- newnewpdro 7y ago
  Not that I think there's a conspiracy, I don't think one has to try very hard to imagine reasons why the powers that be would suppress such discoveries. Consider for instance how many US citizens are still religious today, and largely govern their lives according to religious beliefs. Consider how the current president has deliberately weakened the separation of church and state by making it legal for churches to be political - pastors of tax-exempt churches can now outright advise congregation on who to vote for. Discovery of life elsewhere threatens the foundation of a lot of religious dogma.
  - CoryG89 7y ago
    People always claim this, but I'm not convinced. We've had a million scientific discoveries that for all practical purposes disprove a lot of religious claims. People seem to either just adapt their beliefs, ie. things move from literal to symbolic, or people simply choose not to believe or consider the facts despite clear evidence. I don't think simple facts or evidence will ever seriously threaten religious dogma for at least some portion of the population.
api 7y ago
I get the feeling that contrary to rhetoric the search for life on Mars or anywhere else is almost an anti-priority. Not much designed to look for life has been sent since Viking in spite of direct observation of water ice, brine, and other features suggesting ideal landing sites for such experiments. If perclorates were the cause of the Viking positive as many suggest, why not send a new experiment designed to rule that in or out? Why not send a whole lot more chemical tests for biology, or a microscope for that matter? I suspect there is strong concern about the social effects of the revelation of any extraterrestrial life, even microbes. From what I see of the mass psychosis that is most of current political discourse this concern might not be unfounded.
- jvanderbot 7y ago
  The priorities currently for Mars seem to be gathering correlated data to strengthen or weaken the case overall. https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/mission/instruments/ https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/mission/instruments/
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    2x. Look at the test suites on everything we've sent since Viking. Viking gave us odd results so we've set out to do a good job proving things one way or the other.
- newdayrising 7y ago
  I think it's the opposite. There are scientists who are obsessed with finding extraterrestrial life because of their philosophical views regarding man's place in the universe. The fact that our universe seems primed for life has bothered so many gung ho atheistic scientists that they've conjured all sorts of semi-pseudoscientific multiverse theories (Sean Carroll). That's one part of it. The second part it's reducing abiogenesis to a simple process that just "takes time" and is almost inevitable. The goal is to try to shove bare faced facts into a dusty drawer while you trot out the latest sensational theory. This is why there's been constant attacks on the Big Bang theory even though it's one of the triumphs of modern cosmological science. It all becomes so easy to justify when you define science as "what atheists believe."
aazaa 7y ago
> On July 30, 1976, the LR returned its initial results from Mars. Amazingly, they were positive. As the experiment progressed, a total of four positive results, supported by five varied controls, streamed down from the twin Viking spacecraft landed some 4,000 miles apart. The data curves signaled the detection of microbial respiration on the Red Planet. The curves from Mars were similar to those produced by LR tests of soils on Earth. It seemed we had answered that ultimate question. This article does a poor job of explaining the experiment in question: "Labeled Release" (LR). According to Wikipedia: > ... In the LR experiment, a sample of Martian soil was inoculated with a drop of very dilute aqueous nutrient solution. The nutrients (7 molecules that were Miller-Urey products) were tagged with radioactive 14C. The air above the soil was monitored for the evolution of radioactive 14CO2 gas as evidence that microorganisms in the soil had metabolized one or more of the nutrients. Such a result was to be followed with the control part of the experiment as described for the PR below. The result was quite a surprise, considering the negative results of the first two tests, with a steady stream of radioactive gases being given off by the soil immediately following the first injection. The experiment was done by both Viking probes, the first using a sample from the surface exposed to sunlight and the second probe taking the sample from underneath a rock; both initial injections came back positive.[1] Subsequent injections a week later did not, however, elicit the same reaction, and according to a 1976 paper by Levin [author of the linked article] and Patricia Ann Straat the results were inconclusive.[12][13] In 1997, Levin, Straat and Barry DiGregorio co-authored a book on the issue, titled Mars: The Living Planet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_lander_biological_experiments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_lander_biological_exper... To recap, martian soil was incubated with small organic molecules bearing a radioactive label. A chemical process that converted them into CO2 would give off some radioactive gas. The gas was detected by both landers the first time the experiment was run, but not the second time. It should be kept in mind that non-biological processes can also convert small organic molecules into CO2. Simple combustion will do this, for example. This possibility is discussed later in the Wikipedia article (but not in the linked article): > Despite the positive result from the Labeled Release experiment, a general assessment is that the results seen in the four experiments are best explained by oxidative chemical reactions with the Martian soil. One of the current conclusions is that the Martian soil, being continuously exposed to UV light from the Sun (Mars has no protective ozone layer), has built up a thin layer of a very strong oxidant. A sufficiently strong oxidizing molecule would react with the added water to produce oxygen and hydrogen, and with the nutrients to produce carbon dioxide (CO2). However, this does not explain the discrepancy between the first and second test. And it leaves open the question of why both landers' experiments gave the same odd result (first test positive, second test negative). The small organic molecules used as nutrients were those produced in a famous lab simulation of early earth. Its results showed that many of the basic building blocks of life could be formed by passing an electrical current through gases thought to be present in the early Earth atmosphere.
psaux 7y ago
I often wonder why these are always auxiliary conversations. Ever since I was young, like most kids (I have 4), I also had this deep yearning for knowledge on life external to earth. Wonder why this never has gone mainstream.
- AndrewKemendo 7y ago
  Let's assume for a moment that we did find something resembling simple organic life on Mars and confirmed that earth isn't the only life bearing planet. What functionally changes for our existential understanding of the universe? I'd argue little to nothing. We'd learn a bit more about organic life, but no fundamental philosophical or existential questions would be resolved. Life has been confirmed to be able to thrive in many more extreme places here on earth than anywhere observed on Mars. There wouldn't be any firm resolution on the question of whether humans are the only intelligent species in the universe. I think that would be a different answer if we found inorganic life, as that would blow up the concept of organic life as singular in "life" bearing capability. I doubt we would recognize inorganic life as "life" in that case however, as humanity has a poor working definition of "life." Absent a recognizably intelligent form of life found off planet, I doubt much would change (practically or existentially) for us here on earth.
  - modzu 7y ago
    what? so would we have a common ancestor with this organic life (like all life on earth shares)? id think that has philosophical and existential implications
  - dleslie 7y ago
    > What functionally changes for our existential understanding of the universe? The anthropic principal becomes less compelling; to say nothing of the religious implications.
    - pfdietz 7y ago
      No, because the origin of life on Mars would probably be the same event as on Earth, with life having been transferred by impact ejecta. It would not allow us to conclude that origin of life was common.
hirundo 7y ago
"Our aspirational goal is to send our first cargo mission to Mars in 2022. The objectives for the first mission will be to confirm water resources, identify hazards, and put in place initial power, mining, and life support infrastructure. A second mission, with both cargo and crew, is targeted for 2024" -- spacex.com/mars Maybe NASA should book space for a biologist on that flight. A botanist would do.
- dwoozle 7y ago
  Do you really need a botanist on board? I would think you need space travel / survival / engineering hands on deck who then gather samples and bring them back. A botanist isn’t going to be able to do much on Mars that she can’t do on Earth.
  - tootie 7y ago
    A botanist was the protagonist of The Martian.
    - dwoozle 7y ago
      That’s fiction...
    - jorvi 7y ago
      And an antagonist on the TV series 'Mars'!
      - ksaj 7y ago
        I'm guessing that means we're hopelessly off topic by now. Kinda like Reddit, but slower and less pathetic.
    - mch82 7y ago
      Exactly! There’s only one option in the face of overwhelming odds :-) https://youtu.be/BABM3EUo990 https://youtu.be/BABM3EUo990
  - 7y ago
edoceo 7y ago
"microbial respiration on the Red Planet" I want to believe.
chkaloon 7y ago
I wonder if there is an incentive to NOT find life there because of what that discovery might do to slow industrialization and colonization plans. Do we need to conserve that life? Do we need to set up preserves that are off limits to development? Opens a big can of worms (or bacteria) that I imagine some would rather see kept closed
- soup10 7y ago
  realistically mars is way more interesting if its more than a boring rock
  - ncmncm 7y ago
    Even with microbes it would be a boring rock. Anybody who thinks they want to move there should camp in Antactica for ten years, first.
    - hanniabu 7y ago
      And because people settled in Antartica it's no longer the miserable experience it used to be. These are pioneers, they do things that are had, they pave the way for the rest of humanity.
      - ncmncm 7y ago
        There is no migration to Antarctica. Nothing done by people there makes it any easier for somebody who wants to move there, because if your application for research is rejected, you stay out or set up somewhere far away.
  - pts_ 7y ago
    It's far from boring. A planet closest in environment to us is interesting as heck for obvious reasons.
alister 7y ago
What, no mention of ALH84001? I was mesmerized by the live TV press conference by a large group of NASA scientists back in 1996 of evidence of life on Mars from the analysis of a meteorite: "Scientists headed by David McKay of the JohnsonSpaceCenter in Houston found that the rock, called ALH84001, had a peculiar chemical makeup. It contained a combination of minerals and carbon compounds that on Earth are created by microbes. It also had crystals of magnetic iron oxide, called magnetite, which some bacteria produce. Moreover, McKay presented to the crowd an electron microscope view of the rock showing chains of globules that bore a striking resemblance to chains that some bacteria form on Earth. “We believe that these are indeed microfossils from Mars”"[1] I was disappointed that the story fizzled out. One microbiologist concluded that bacteria from Earth had "contaminated the Mars meteorite. Other scientists pointed out that nonliving processes on Mars also could have created the globules and magnetite clumps." But I don't think life is ruled out. This meteorite is hanging in as a "just maybe" like the Viking mission discovery. [1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/life-on-mars-78138144/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/life-on-mars-7...
- ianai 7y ago
  I fear that the “it’s never aliens” credo was taken to the pathological case. Nothing can be life so why look for it? Nothing can be life, so any really complicated scenario not involving life must be true, always.
  - imglorp 7y ago
    In the "swapping spit" scenario, we the aliens and they are us. If genetic material did travel in either direction, it would be easily verified.
    - powerbroker 7y ago
      There is life on Mars -- JPL just doesn't want to tell us. Follow this logic: 1) two planets in habitable zone - both spontaneously cause life; 2) then many or most habitable zone planets have life; 3) Of the trillions of stars in our galaxy, there must be multitudes that have hosted intelligent life; 4) we don't hear SETI signals; 5) that means SETI must have snuffed themselves out with some super-technology; 6) ergo, cannot tell the masses, because they will freak out knowing that we are all doomed, including all our offspring.
outworlder 7y ago
Lots of conspiracy theories here. Planetary Protection is already a thing, even though we haven't found anything yet.
Causality1 7y ago
I'd be flatly amazed if impact ejecta never carried any microorganisms from earth to Mars.
amingilani 7y ago
> 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 I'm very surprised by that. Especially since, as the article says, "NASA maintains the search for alien life among its highest priorities". I thought that would obviously translate to sending life-detection instruments to B̶a̶r̶s̶o̶o̶m̶ Mars.
- noetic_techy 7y ago
  This fact often catches people by surprise when I tell them also. The more conspiratorial theory is that JPL prefers not to include life detection equipment because it would mean the end of robotic missions and more of an emphasis to get humans there to do real biology, which is more the domain of Houston Mission Control. Follow the money...
  - BEEdwards 7y ago
    That would be some seriously short term thinking though. If humans go to mars we will be proceeded by the robots.
    - LoSboccacc 7y ago
      well it's too late now to go to Mars without having been preceded by robots
      - BEEdwards 7y ago
        True, but not exactly what I meant. Constructor bots instead of explorer bots.
  - nkrisc 7y ago
    Which seems kinda silly to this layman because there are no shortage of potential robotic missions.
    - 7y ago
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sillydinosaur 7y ago
What blows my mind is that we have recorded evidence of UFOs with seemingly advanced space flight technology (on camera!) that has been recorded by the Navy. What do people make of this? I'm super curious. Aliens? Skunkworks style deep-state secret stuff? The Russians? What? Personally, the only thing I can think of is aliens. I mean...come on! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ
mellosouls 7y ago
Whatever the evidence, a major factor in this man's belief is likely to be the emotional attachment to the idea. It's his life's crowning achievement as the project leader, and seeing indicators that turned out to be nothing must be a tough thing to come to terms with.
starvingbear 7y ago
> The curves from Mars were similar to those produced by LR tests of soils on Earth. It seemed we had answered that ultimate question. Maybe it was on earth
claudeganon 7y ago
Good book about it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandkings_(novelette) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandkings_(novelette)
sgt101 7y ago
The search for life is the way NASA gets funding. If life is found NASA will not get funding. Therefore NASA is doing all the science it can before it does a test for life. At least we will be able to say something about what it is and the context that it's in. Then the plug will get pulled.
- wickedsickeune 7y ago
  I highly, highly, doubt that. If life was found, I expect that the amount of money invested in studying it, would be orders of magnitude what they are getting now.
avian 7y ago
> Ghost-like moving lights, resembling will-O’-the-wisps on Earth that are formed by spontaneous ignition of methane, have been video-recorded on the Martian surface; I was surprised by this statement. I thought atmosphere on Mars is too thin to support any kind of combustion. After some searching the closest thing I found was a bunch of popular science articles seeing aliens in white pixels on images from Curiosity [1]. It seems all very much like people trying to make a thing out of image artifacts. NASA's much more reasonable explanation is stray reflections in the optics or cosmic particles striking the detector. [1] https://www.cnet.com/news/nasa-mars-curiosity-rover-saw-a-weird-light-but-dont-freak-out/ https://www.cnet.com/news/nasa-mars-curiosity-rover-saw-a-we...
speedplane 7y ago
Science is not about finding life per-se, it's about satisfying curiosity. Articles like these conflate real science (satisfying human curiosity) with finding life on other planets (we're not alone). Of course, finding life on another planet would be an amazing discovery, but for any true believer in science, it would just be the beginning of a million more questions, not the end goal.
- sidcool 7y ago
  While Scientific discovery would never stop, a milestone like this would be significant. And it would warrant awe.
RobertRoberts 7y ago
Science becomes corrupted when the research focuses on finding proof of and ideal instead disproving it. There are no aliens. With the money wasted on looking for aliens we could have saved millions of lives with clean water, shelter, food and education. Scientists need to stop deluding themselves and tricking congress into funding pet projects that are so far fetched they border on fraud.
- mytailorisrich 7y ago
  What is your evidence that there are no aliens, then? Proving a negative in a virtually infinite universe looks like an uphill struggle, don't you think?
  - RobertRoberts 7y ago
    Exactly. You can't prove a negative, so there are no aliens. There is not a single shred of evidence _ever_ found to support one iota of research funding. It's science fiction run amok.
    - mytailorisrich 7y ago
      > You can't prove a negative, so there are no aliens. That's self-contradicting.
      - RobertRoberts 7y ago
        There is no way to state something that is non-existent is actually non-existent without a bizarre contradiction.
        mytailorisrich 7y ago
        The whole point here is that you do not know that it is inexistent and that you cannot prove it, either. You only need to find a single instance of aliens to prove that aliens exist. You need to carefully analyse the whole universe and not find anything to prove that they do not. Proving a negative is hard.
jayalpha 7y ago
Extraordinary claims need extraordinary data. We don't have this data. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_lander_biological_experiments#Scientific_conclusions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_lander_biological_exper... It is "inconclusive" at best.
- sidcool 7y ago
  The author is not claiming that he knows for sure. Based on his involvement in the project, he has strong reasons to believe it. He is calling for more research in this area. It's similar to NASA's claim that life on Mars is likely to be found by 2021.
- computerex 7y ago
  > Surface water sufficient to sustain microorganisms was found on Mars by Viking, Pathfinder, Phoenix and Curiosity; Ultraviolet (UV) activation of the Martian surface material did not, as initially proposed, cause the LR reaction: a sample taken from under a UV-shielding rock was as LR-active as surface samples; Complex organics, have been reported on Mars by Curiosity’s scientists, possibly including kerogen, which could be of biological origin; Phoenix and Curiosity found evidence that the ancient Martian environment may have been habitable. The excess of carbon-13 over carbon-12 in the Martian atmosphere is indicative of biological activity, which prefers ingesting the latter; The Martian atmosphere is in disequilibrium: its CO2 should long ago have been converted to CO by the sun’s UV light; thus the CO2 is being regenerated, possibly by microorganisms as on Earth; Terrestrial microorganisms have survived in outer space outside the ISS; Ejecta containing viable microbes have likely been arriving on Mars from Earth; Methane has been measured in the Martian atmosphere; microbial methanogens could be the source; The rapid disappearance of methane from the Martian atmosphere requires a sink, possibly supplied by methanotrophs that could co-exist with methanogens on the Martian surface; Ghost-like moving lights, resembling will-O’-the-wisps on Earth that are formed by spontaneous ignition of methane, have been video-recorded on the Martian surface; Formaldehyde and ammonia, each possibly indicative of biology, are claimed to be in the Martian atmosphere; An independent complexity analysis of the positive LR signal identified it as biological; Six-channel spectral analyses by Viking’s imaging system found terrestrial lichen and green patches on Mars rocks to have the identical color, saturation, hue and intensity; A wormlike feature was in an image taken by Curiosity; Large structures resembling terrestrial stromatolites (formed by microorganisms) were found by Curiosity; a statistical analysis of their complex features showed less than a 0.04 percent probability that the similarity was caused by chance alone; No factor inimical to life has been found on Mars.
Razengan 7y ago
Excuse the cliche question, but what is Life? If we make an AI whose thoughts and communication are practically indistinguishable from humans, and it controls a bunch of things that affect the physical world, is it alive? If there's a disembodied mind somewhere that can think and imagine but never communicate or interact with anything, is it dead? What about a human in a coma or permanent dreaming state? What about when they later wake up? Okay nevermind thoughts and communication; What if there's an armada of "dumb" robots, spawned from a single factory, that can't think, only acts according to preset instructions, but still goes on to affect many things for hundreds of years, what should they be classified as? Would they be considered "artificial" life or automatons even if they existed for thousands of years and their creators were no longer around? I don't think there is any single absolute criteria to classify all possible entities that must be out there or could theoretically exist, but the answer to "What is life?" is probably this: Whatever other life thinks is life.
- deleted 7y ago
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- JacksonGariety 7y ago
  The concept of life is not unique in this regard. One can form a similar argument for any concept whatsoever. It's more useful to situate concepts such as 'life' at the center of constellations of other concepts such as 'self-determination', 'will', 'evolution', and so on.
- tbabb 7y ago
  Life is that which is subject to Darwinian evolution. That definition catches every single thing you'd call life, excludes all the things that clearly aren't, disambiguates some grey cases, and illuminates one or two new phenomena to be life which you might not have realized. To be clear, Darwinian evolution means: - It makes copies of itself (reproduction) - The copies take traits from the original (inheritance) - The traits can vary among the copies and between generations (mutation) - The copies' ability to make more copies depends on the traits they inherit (selection)
  - 7y ago
sandGorgon 7y ago
>Our nation has now committed to sending astronauts to Mars. Any life there might threaten them, and us upon their return. Thus, the issue of life on Mars is now front and center. I'm pretty sure this is the whole point of the article.
yummybear 7y ago
But if the CLR comes back positive, doesn’t that still mean there’s room for “it could be some unknown nonbiological process”. Wouldn’t saying with certainty that there is life on mars need somerthing like a microscopic image of cells dividing?
bogusButtlord 7y ago
because they will freak out Of all the limp-dick, imaginary bugaboos you could hope to trot out, while showing your ass in another comments section, this one is supremely corny. So pathetic is the idea, that it's like saying: "gas stations don't sell their gasoline in 12 ounce bottles, because they're afraid of getting stuck with all the gas that looks bad, so they make you pump it, to hide all the sludge and impurities." and then making up a wives tale like: "gas stations only TELL us that they on't sell bottled gas, because drunks used to buy the wrong bottles and spontaneously combust. The TRUTH is that they're slipping us all batches of sludge at the pump." That's what you sound like. You sound like a moron. That's not why gas doesn't come in bottles. There are a hundred reasons why gas isn't sold by the bottle. It's not because there's some cover up. No one would freak out if space aliens were discovered. No one. We talk about space aliens all the time. It's plainly obvious that people are comfortable with the hypothesis. It would be one more animal, and no one would go crazy. We have talking parrots and giant squids. We have killer bees and messenger pigeons. Space aliens aren't even that strange. A talking dog would be more impressive. Get a fucking clue. SETI really, probably just wasn't the best use of a giant high maintenance radio telescope. And if you're looking for bald assumptions to adopt as you try to read between the lines of your own cloak and dagger pulp novel, please note the SETI died right alongside the cold war. If anything, it was probably cover for experimental anti-soviet nuclear weapons defense that got deprioritized when threat models changes in the 1990's. It may have been part of a doomsday counterstrike hair trigger early warning network, happily retired once diplomatic channels improved. What, if not a giant covert anti-nuke radar network, hiding in plain sight, would make more sense? Ah, yes, of course. Space aliens. How stupid of me.
therealbilly 7y ago
Here's the deal. There seems to be a default mode of behavior where people automatically reject news that conflicts with the status quo. In this case, these people are senior scientists not involved in the original mission. It's very unfair. Breakthroughs in knowledge could be happening right beneath our noses and people (not involved in the project), are actively surpressing or invoking pretzel logic to belittle the findings.
NoPicklez 7y ago
It seems like finding life on another planet is held to secrecy, but in my mind wouldn't a country want to take credit for finding the first signs of life outside of Earth? And therefore, if a country was to find and confirm life of another planet wouldn't they report it immediately?

477 points by simulate 7y ago

It looks like a lot of people think the presence of the oxidizer perchlorate is the cause of the false positive, but there isn't consensus yet. ``` On August 2008, the Phoenix lander detected perchlorate, a strong oxidizer when heated above 200 °C. This was initially thought to be the cause of a false positive LR result. However, results of experiments published in December 2010 propose that organic compounds "could have been present" in the soil analyzed by both Viking 1 and 2, since NASA's Phoenix lander in 2008 detected perchlorate, which can break down organic compounds. The study's authors found that perchlorate can destroy organics when heated and produce chloromethane and dichloromethane as byproduct, the identical chlorine compounds discovered by both Viking landers when they performed the same tests on Mars. Because perchlorate would have broken down any Martian organics, the question of whether or not Viking found organic compounds is still wide open, as alternative chemical and biological interpretations are possible. ... 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. ```[0] It's funny that perchlorate is likely what confounded the LR experiment, as the discovery of perchlorate in the soil made a lot of folks less optimistic about life being able to survive on the Martian surface.[1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_lander_biological_experiments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_lander_biological_exper... [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5500590/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5500590/

labster 7y ago
Yep, definitely ironic that an oxidant like perchlorate reduced the chance of finding life. You’ve been a great audience, I’ll be here for the next 7 sols!

ropiwqefjnpoa 7y ago

IDK, what would be the motive to hide that?

eindiran 7y ago
I don't think Levin is making the claim that NASA knows that there is life on Mars and that there is a conspiracy to cover it up. They both are looking at the same results and (honestly) coming to different conclusions. Part of this is that it's expensive to do experiments on Mars, and space is limited. Each experiment you choose to do excludes you from doing others, so NASA has evaluated the evidence and doesn't think its the most efficient thing to pursue right now. Levin is trying to convince folks that the evidence is sufficient to warrant pursuing further experiments that would clarify what is going on here.
chadcmulligan 7y ago
To hide the lizard peoples secret base
- dang 7y ago
  Please stop posting unsubstantive comments here.
newnewpdro 7y ago
Not that I think there's a conspiracy, I don't think one has to try very hard to imagine reasons why the powers that be would suppress such discoveries. Consider for instance how many US citizens are still religious today, and largely govern their lives according to religious beliefs. Consider how the current president has deliberately weakened the separation of church and state by making it legal for churches to be political - pastors of tax-exempt churches can now outright advise congregation on who to vote for. Discovery of life elsewhere threatens the foundation of a lot of religious dogma.
- CoryG89 7y ago
  People always claim this, but I'm not convinced. We've had a million scientific discoveries that for all practical purposes disprove a lot of religious claims. People seem to either just adapt their beliefs, ie. things move from literal to symbolic, or people simply choose not to believe or consider the facts despite clear evidence. I don't think simple facts or evidence will ever seriously threaten religious dogma for at least some portion of the population.

api 7y ago

I get the feeling that contrary to rhetoric the search for life on Mars or anywhere else is almost an anti-priority. Not much designed to look for life has been sent since Viking in spite of direct observation of water ice, brine, and other features suggesting ideal landing sites for such experiments. If perclorates were the cause of the Viking positive as many suggest, why not send a new experiment designed to rule that in or out? Why not send a whole lot more chemical tests for biology, or a microscope for that matter? I suspect there is strong concern about the social effects of the revelation of any extraterrestrial life, even microbes. From what I see of the mass psychosis that is most of current political discourse this concern might not be unfounded.

jvanderbot 7y ago
The priorities currently for Mars seem to be gathering correlated data to strengthen or weaken the case overall. https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/mission/instruments/ https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/mission/instruments/
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  2x. Look at the test suites on everything we've sent since Viking. Viking gave us odd results so we've set out to do a good job proving things one way or the other.
newdayrising 7y ago
I think it's the opposite. There are scientists who are obsessed with finding extraterrestrial life because of their philosophical views regarding man's place in the universe. The fact that our universe seems primed for life has bothered so many gung ho atheistic scientists that they've conjured all sorts of semi-pseudoscientific multiverse theories (Sean Carroll). That's one part of it. The second part it's reducing abiogenesis to a simple process that just "takes time" and is almost inevitable. The goal is to try to shove bare faced facts into a dusty drawer while you trot out the latest sensational theory. This is why there's been constant attacks on the Big Bang theory even though it's one of the triumphs of modern cosmological science. It all becomes so easy to justify when you define science as "what atheists believe."

aazaa 7y ago

> On July 30, 1976, the LR returned its initial results from Mars. Amazingly, they were positive. As the experiment progressed, a total of four positive results, supported by five varied controls, streamed down from the twin Viking spacecraft landed some 4,000 miles apart. The data curves signaled the detection of microbial respiration on the Red Planet. The curves from Mars were similar to those produced by LR tests of soils on Earth. It seemed we had answered that ultimate question. This article does a poor job of explaining the experiment in question: "Labeled Release" (LR). According to Wikipedia: > ... In the LR experiment, a sample of Martian soil was inoculated with a drop of very dilute aqueous nutrient solution. The nutrients (7 molecules that were Miller-Urey products) were tagged with radioactive 14C. The air above the soil was monitored for the evolution of radioactive 14CO2 gas as evidence that microorganisms in the soil had metabolized one or more of the nutrients. Such a result was to be followed with the control part of the experiment as described for the PR below. The result was quite a surprise, considering the negative results of the first two tests, with a steady stream of radioactive gases being given off by the soil immediately following the first injection. The experiment was done by both Viking probes, the first using a sample from the surface exposed to sunlight and the second probe taking the sample from underneath a rock; both initial injections came back positive.[1] Subsequent injections a week later did not, however, elicit the same reaction, and according to a 1976 paper by Levin [author of the linked article] and Patricia Ann Straat the results were inconclusive.[12][13] In 1997, Levin, Straat and Barry DiGregorio co-authored a book on the issue, titled Mars: The Living Planet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_lander_biological_experiments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_lander_biological_exper... To recap, martian soil was incubated with small organic molecules bearing a radioactive label. A chemical process that converted them into CO2 would give off some radioactive gas. The gas was detected by both landers the first time the experiment was run, but not the second time. It should be kept in mind that non-biological processes can also convert small organic molecules into CO2. Simple combustion will do this, for example. This possibility is discussed later in the Wikipedia article (but not in the linked article): > Despite the positive result from the Labeled Release experiment, a general assessment is that the results seen in the four experiments are best explained by oxidative chemical reactions with the Martian soil. One of the current conclusions is that the Martian soil, being continuously exposed to UV light from the Sun (Mars has no protective ozone layer), has built up a thin layer of a very strong oxidant. A sufficiently strong oxidizing molecule would react with the added water to produce oxygen and hydrogen, and with the nutrients to produce carbon dioxide (CO2). However, this does not explain the discrepancy between the first and second test. And it leaves open the question of why both landers' experiments gave the same odd result (first test positive, second test negative). The small organic molecules used as nutrients were those produced in a famous lab simulation of early earth. Its results showed that many of the basic building blocks of life could be formed by passing an electrical current through gases thought to be present in the early Earth atmosphere.

psaux 7y ago

I often wonder why these are always auxiliary conversations. Ever since I was young, like most kids (I have 4), I also had this deep yearning for knowledge on life external to earth. Wonder why this never has gone mainstream.

AndrewKemendo 7y ago
Let's assume for a moment that we did find something resembling simple organic life on Mars and confirmed that earth isn't the only life bearing planet. What functionally changes for our existential understanding of the universe? I'd argue little to nothing. We'd learn a bit more about organic life, but no fundamental philosophical or existential questions would be resolved. Life has been confirmed to be able to thrive in many more extreme places here on earth than anywhere observed on Mars. There wouldn't be any firm resolution on the question of whether humans are the only intelligent species in the universe. I think that would be a different answer if we found inorganic life, as that would blow up the concept of organic life as singular in "life" bearing capability. I doubt we would recognize inorganic life as "life" in that case however, as humanity has a poor working definition of "life." Absent a recognizably intelligent form of life found off planet, I doubt much would change (practically or existentially) for us here on earth.
- modzu 7y ago
  what? so would we have a common ancestor with this organic life (like all life on earth shares)? id think that has philosophical and existential implications
- dleslie 7y ago
  > What functionally changes for our existential understanding of the universe? The anthropic principal becomes less compelling; to say nothing of the religious implications.
  - pfdietz 7y ago
    No, because the origin of life on Mars would probably be the same event as on Earth, with life having been transferred by impact ejecta. It would not allow us to conclude that origin of life was common.

hirundo 7y ago

"Our aspirational goal is to send our first cargo mission to Mars in 2022. The objectives for the first mission will be to confirm water resources, identify hazards, and put in place initial power, mining, and life support infrastructure. A second mission, with both cargo and crew, is targeted for 2024" -- spacex.com/mars Maybe NASA should book space for a biologist on that flight. A botanist would do.

dwoozle 7y ago
Do you really need a botanist on board? I would think you need space travel / survival / engineering hands on deck who then gather samples and bring them back. A botanist isn’t going to be able to do much on Mars that she can’t do on Earth.
- tootie 7y ago
  A botanist was the protagonist of The Martian.
  - dwoozle 7y ago
    That’s fiction...
  - jorvi 7y ago
    And an antagonist on the TV series 'Mars'!
    - ksaj 7y ago
      I'm guessing that means we're hopelessly off topic by now. Kinda like Reddit, but slower and less pathetic.
  - mch82 7y ago
    Exactly! There’s only one option in the face of overwhelming odds :-) https://youtu.be/BABM3EUo990 https://youtu.be/BABM3EUo990
- 7y ago

edoceo 7y ago

"microbial respiration on the Red Planet" I want to believe.

chkaloon 7y ago

I wonder if there is an incentive to NOT find life there because of what that discovery might do to slow industrialization and colonization plans. Do we need to conserve that life? Do we need to set up preserves that are off limits to development? Opens a big can of worms (or bacteria) that I imagine some would rather see kept closed

soup10 7y ago
realistically mars is way more interesting if its more than a boring rock
- ncmncm 7y ago
  Even with microbes it would be a boring rock. Anybody who thinks they want to move there should camp in Antactica for ten years, first.
  - hanniabu 7y ago
    And because people settled in Antartica it's no longer the miserable experience it used to be. These are pioneers, they do things that are had, they pave the way for the rest of humanity.
    - ncmncm 7y ago
      There is no migration to Antarctica. Nothing done by people there makes it any easier for somebody who wants to move there, because if your application for research is rejected, you stay out or set up somewhere far away.
- pts_ 7y ago
  It's far from boring. A planet closest in environment to us is interesting as heck for obvious reasons.

alister 7y ago

What, no mention of ALH84001? I was mesmerized by the live TV press conference by a large group of NASA scientists back in 1996 of evidence of life on Mars from the analysis of a meteorite: "Scientists headed by David McKay of the JohnsonSpaceCenter in Houston found that the rock, called ALH84001, had a peculiar chemical makeup. It contained a combination of minerals and carbon compounds that on Earth are created by microbes. It also had crystals of magnetic iron oxide, called magnetite, which some bacteria produce. Moreover, McKay presented to the crowd an electron microscope view of the rock showing chains of globules that bore a striking resemblance to chains that some bacteria form on Earth. “We believe that these are indeed microfossils from Mars”"[1] I was disappointed that the story fizzled out. One microbiologist concluded that bacteria from Earth had "contaminated the Mars meteorite. Other scientists pointed out that nonliving processes on Mars also could have created the globules and magnetite clumps." But I don't think life is ruled out. This meteorite is hanging in as a "just maybe" like the Viking mission discovery. [1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/life-on-mars-78138144/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/life-on-mars-7...

ianai 7y ago
I fear that the “it’s never aliens” credo was taken to the pathological case. Nothing can be life so why look for it? Nothing can be life, so any really complicated scenario not involving life must be true, always.
- imglorp 7y ago
  In the "swapping spit" scenario, we the aliens and they are us. If genetic material did travel in either direction, it would be easily verified.
  - powerbroker 7y ago
    There is life on Mars -- JPL just doesn't want to tell us. Follow this logic: 1) two planets in habitable zone - both spontaneously cause life; 2) then many or most habitable zone planets have life; 3) Of the trillions of stars in our galaxy, there must be multitudes that have hosted intelligent life; 4) we don't hear SETI signals; 5) that means SETI must have snuffed themselves out with some super-technology; 6) ergo, cannot tell the masses, because they will freak out knowing that we are all doomed, including all our offspring.

outworlder 7y ago

Lots of conspiracy theories here. Planetary Protection is already a thing, even though we haven't found anything yet.

Causality1 7y ago

I'd be flatly amazed if impact ejecta never carried any microorganisms from earth to Mars.

amingilani 7y ago

> 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 I'm very surprised by that. Especially since, as the article says, "NASA maintains the search for alien life among its highest priorities". I thought that would obviously translate to sending life-detection instruments to B̶a̶r̶s̶o̶o̶m̶ Mars.

noetic_techy 7y ago
This fact often catches people by surprise when I tell them also. The more conspiratorial theory is that JPL prefers not to include life detection equipment because it would mean the end of robotic missions and more of an emphasis to get humans there to do real biology, which is more the domain of Houston Mission Control. Follow the money...
- BEEdwards 7y ago
  That would be some seriously short term thinking though. If humans go to mars we will be proceeded by the robots.
  - LoSboccacc 7y ago
    well it's too late now to go to Mars without having been preceded by robots
    - BEEdwards 7y ago
      True, but not exactly what I meant. Constructor bots instead of explorer bots.
- nkrisc 7y ago
  Which seems kinda silly to this layman because there are no shortage of potential robotic missions.
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sillydinosaur 7y ago

What blows my mind is that we have recorded evidence of UFOs with seemingly advanced space flight technology (on camera!) that has been recorded by the Navy. What do people make of this? I'm super curious. Aliens? Skunkworks style deep-state secret stuff? The Russians? What? Personally, the only thing I can think of is aliens. I mean...come on! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eco2s3-0zsQ

mellosouls 7y ago

Whatever the evidence, a major factor in this man's belief is likely to be the emotional attachment to the idea. It's his life's crowning achievement as the project leader, and seeing indicators that turned out to be nothing must be a tough thing to come to terms with.

starvingbear 7y ago

> The curves from Mars were similar to those produced by LR tests of soils on Earth. It seemed we had answered that ultimate question. Maybe it was on earth

claudeganon 7y ago

Good book about it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandkings_(novelette) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandkings_(novelette)

sgt101 7y ago

The search for life is the way NASA gets funding. If life is found NASA will not get funding. Therefore NASA is doing all the science it can before it does a test for life. At least we will be able to say something about what it is and the context that it's in. Then the plug will get pulled.

wickedsickeune 7y ago
I highly, highly, doubt that. If life was found, I expect that the amount of money invested in studying it, would be orders of magnitude what they are getting now.

avian 7y ago

> Ghost-like moving lights, resembling will-O’-the-wisps on Earth that are formed by spontaneous ignition of methane, have been video-recorded on the Martian surface; I was surprised by this statement. I thought atmosphere on Mars is too thin to support any kind of combustion. After some searching the closest thing I found was a bunch of popular science articles seeing aliens in white pixels on images from Curiosity [1]. It seems all very much like people trying to make a thing out of image artifacts. NASA's much more reasonable explanation is stray reflections in the optics or cosmic particles striking the detector. [1] https://www.cnet.com/news/nasa-mars-curiosity-rover-saw-a-weird-light-but-dont-freak-out/ https://www.cnet.com/news/nasa-mars-curiosity-rover-saw-a-we...

speedplane 7y ago

Science is not about finding life per-se, it's about satisfying curiosity. Articles like these conflate real science (satisfying human curiosity) with finding life on other planets (we're not alone). Of course, finding life on another planet would be an amazing discovery, but for any true believer in science, it would just be the beginning of a million more questions, not the end goal.

sidcool 7y ago
While Scientific discovery would never stop, a milestone like this would be significant. And it would warrant awe.

RobertRoberts 7y ago

Science becomes corrupted when the research focuses on finding proof of and ideal instead disproving it. There are no aliens. With the money wasted on looking for aliens we could have saved millions of lives with clean water, shelter, food and education. Scientists need to stop deluding themselves and tricking congress into funding pet projects that are so far fetched they border on fraud.

mytailorisrich 7y ago
What is your evidence that there are no aliens, then? Proving a negative in a virtually infinite universe looks like an uphill struggle, don't you think?
- RobertRoberts 7y ago
  Exactly. You can't prove a negative, so there are no aliens. There is not a single shred of evidence _ever_ found to support one iota of research funding. It's science fiction run amok.
  - mytailorisrich 7y ago
    > You can't prove a negative, so there are no aliens. That's self-contradicting.
    - RobertRoberts 7y ago
      There is no way to state something that is non-existent is actually non-existent without a bizarre contradiction.
      - mytailorisrich 7y ago
        The whole point here is that you do not know that it is inexistent and that you cannot prove it, either. You only need to find a single instance of aliens to prove that aliens exist. You need to carefully analyse the whole universe and not find anything to prove that they do not. Proving a negative is hard.

jayalpha 7y ago

Extraordinary claims need extraordinary data. We don't have this data. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_lander_biological_experiments#Scientific_conclusions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_lander_biological_exper... It is "inconclusive" at best.

sidcool 7y ago
The author is not claiming that he knows for sure. Based on his involvement in the project, he has strong reasons to believe it. He is calling for more research in this area. It's similar to NASA's claim that life on Mars is likely to be found by 2021.
computerex 7y ago
> Surface water sufficient to sustain microorganisms was found on Mars by Viking, Pathfinder, Phoenix and Curiosity; Ultraviolet (UV) activation of the Martian surface material did not, as initially proposed, cause the LR reaction: a sample taken from under a UV-shielding rock was as LR-active as surface samples; Complex organics, have been reported on Mars by Curiosity’s scientists, possibly including kerogen, which could be of biological origin; Phoenix and Curiosity found evidence that the ancient Martian environment may have been habitable. The excess of carbon-13 over carbon-12 in the Martian atmosphere is indicative of biological activity, which prefers ingesting the latter; The Martian atmosphere is in disequilibrium: its CO2 should long ago have been converted to CO by the sun’s UV light; thus the CO2 is being regenerated, possibly by microorganisms as on Earth; Terrestrial microorganisms have survived in outer space outside the ISS; Ejecta containing viable microbes have likely been arriving on Mars from Earth; Methane has been measured in the Martian atmosphere; microbial methanogens could be the source; The rapid disappearance of methane from the Martian atmosphere requires a sink, possibly supplied by methanotrophs that could co-exist with methanogens on the Martian surface; Ghost-like moving lights, resembling will-O’-the-wisps on Earth that are formed by spontaneous ignition of methane, have been video-recorded on the Martian surface; Formaldehyde and ammonia, each possibly indicative of biology, are claimed to be in the Martian atmosphere; An independent complexity analysis of the positive LR signal identified it as biological; Six-channel spectral analyses by Viking’s imaging system found terrestrial lichen and green patches on Mars rocks to have the identical color, saturation, hue and intensity; A wormlike feature was in an image taken by Curiosity; Large structures resembling terrestrial stromatolites (formed by microorganisms) were found by Curiosity; a statistical analysis of their complex features showed less than a 0.04 percent probability that the similarity was caused by chance alone; No factor inimical to life has been found on Mars.

Razengan 7y ago

Excuse the cliche question, but what is Life? If we make an AI whose thoughts and communication are practically indistinguishable from humans, and it controls a bunch of things that affect the physical world, is it alive? If there's a disembodied mind somewhere that can think and imagine but never communicate or interact with anything, is it dead? What about a human in a coma or permanent dreaming state? What about when they later wake up? Okay nevermind thoughts and communication; What if there's an armada of "dumb" robots, spawned from a single factory, that can't think, only acts according to preset instructions, but still goes on to affect many things for hundreds of years, what should they be classified as? Would they be considered "artificial" life or automatons even if they existed for thousands of years and their creators were no longer around? I don't think there is any single absolute criteria to classify all possible entities that must be out there or could theoretically exist, but the answer to "What is life?" is probably this: Whatever other life thinks is life.

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JacksonGariety 7y ago
The concept of life is not unique in this regard. One can form a similar argument for any concept whatsoever. It's more useful to situate concepts such as 'life' at the center of constellations of other concepts such as 'self-determination', 'will', 'evolution', and so on.
tbabb 7y ago
Life is that which is subject to Darwinian evolution. That definition catches every single thing you'd call life, excludes all the things that clearly aren't, disambiguates some grey cases, and illuminates one or two new phenomena to be life which you might not have realized. To be clear, Darwinian evolution means: - It makes copies of itself (reproduction) - The copies take traits from the original (inheritance) - The traits can vary among the copies and between generations (mutation) - The copies' ability to make more copies depends on the traits they inherit (selection)
- 7y ago

sandGorgon 7y ago

>Our nation has now committed to sending astronauts to Mars. Any life there might threaten them, and us upon their return. Thus, the issue of life on Mars is now front and center. I'm pretty sure this is the whole point of the article.

yummybear 7y ago

But if the CLR comes back positive, doesn’t that still mean there’s room for “it could be some unknown nonbiological process”. Wouldn’t saying with certainty that there is life on mars need somerthing like a microscopic image of cells dividing?

bogusButtlord 7y ago

because they will freak out Of all the limp-dick, imaginary bugaboos you could hope to trot out, while showing your ass in another comments section, this one is supremely corny. So pathetic is the idea, that it's like saying: "gas stations don't sell their gasoline in 12 ounce bottles, because they're afraid of getting stuck with all the gas that looks bad, so they make you pump it, to hide all the sludge and impurities." and then making up a wives tale like: "gas stations only TELL us that they on't sell bottled gas, because drunks used to buy the wrong bottles and spontaneously combust. The TRUTH is that they're slipping us all batches of sludge at the pump." That's what you sound like. You sound like a moron. That's not why gas doesn't come in bottles. There are a hundred reasons why gas isn't sold by the bottle. It's not because there's some cover up. No one would freak out if space aliens were discovered. No one. We talk about space aliens all the time. It's plainly obvious that people are comfortable with the hypothesis. It would be one more animal, and no one would go crazy. We have talking parrots and giant squids. We have killer bees and messenger pigeons. Space aliens aren't even that strange. A talking dog would be more impressive. Get a fucking clue. SETI really, probably just wasn't the best use of a giant high maintenance radio telescope. And if you're looking for bald assumptions to adopt as you try to read between the lines of your own cloak and dagger pulp novel, please note the SETI died right alongside the cold war. If anything, it was probably cover for experimental anti-soviet nuclear weapons defense that got deprioritized when threat models changes in the 1990's. It may have been part of a doomsday counterstrike hair trigger early warning network, happily retired once diplomatic channels improved. What, if not a giant covert anti-nuke radar network, hiding in plain sight, would make more sense? Ah, yes, of course. Space aliens. How stupid of me.

therealbilly 7y ago

Here's the deal. There seems to be a default mode of behavior where people automatically reject news that conflicts with the status quo. In this case, these people are senior scientists not involved in the original mission. It's very unfair. Breakthroughs in knowledge could be happening right beneath our noses and people (not involved in the project), are actively surpressing or invoking pretzel logic to belittle the findings.

NoPicklez 7y ago

It seems like finding life on another planet is held to secrecy, but in my mind wouldn't a country want to take credit for finding the first signs of life outside of Earth? And therefore, if a country was to find and confirm life of another planet wouldn't they report it immediately?