Just like David Bowie , uranologist often ask themselves if there ’s life on Mars . And although we have been studying the closed book for 40 years , we have yet to find an reply .
But a new theme , bring out in the journalAstrobiology , review the last four decades of analysis of the Red Planet , and it argues that the possibility of live microbial life-time on Mars is eminent than many scientists and non - scientist might think .
The research is free-base on the Labeled Release ( LR ) experiment from theViking Mars landersin the late seventies . The LR was devised to look for metabolic signatures – chemical substance produced by living organisms . The probes did see some interesting chemical substance , but the authors of the 1976 summary report , Gilbert Levin and Patricia Ann Straat , deemed the resultsinconclusive .
The same two scientists worked on the new study , which re - examined the Viking data point in compounding with recent results from other commission that explored water , methane , and constitutive compounds . They reason out that non - biological account for the Viking data are unsatisfactory and that the biological hypothesis is still a strong challenger .
In the LR experimentation , sampling of Martian land were inoculated with a drop of a dilute nutrient solution tagged with a radioactive carbon isotope . The atmosphere above the sample was monitored , and the researchers subsequently notice the radioactive isotope in carbon dioxide from the samples . When the final result were repeated a week later , they did not regain the same key signature – an denotation that the chemic reaction did n’t depend on a life being .
The alternative surmise suggests that there ’s an oxidizing agent present , which turned the add together compound into carbon copy dioxide . A chemical compound known as peroxide - change titanium dioxide appearsto produce like resultsto the one seen by Viking Lander .
" Even if one is not convinced that the Viking LR results give impregnable evidence for life story on Mars , this theme clearly show that the possible action must be consider , " say Chris McKay , fourth-year editor of astrobiology and an astrobiologist with NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field , California , in astatement .
It mightseemlike a " god - dread small affair " , but the front of microbic living on Mars could be essential in deciding what ’s the good approach for succeeding crew missions to the Red Planet .
[ H / T : Science Direct ]
