Did NASA find and kill him decades ago?

NASA discovered life on Mars and accidentally destroyed it in the 1970s, a researcher said. He has a suggestion.

Frankfurt – Is there life on Mars? This question has fascinated humanity for some time, and according to one scientist’s theory, NASA could have answered this question in the affirmative as early as the 1970s. However, rather than confirming their discovery of life on Mars, researcher Dirk Schulz-Makuch believes the research may have inadvertently wiped out that life.

In the 1970s, NASA sent two Viking landers to Mars. Each is equipped with four biological instruments to search for life on the Red Planet – and some tests have already shown positive results. But the results were inconclusive: in some experiments there were changes that could – but were not necessarily – due to organic life. Scientist Gilbert Levin, who participated in the experiments at the time, had repeatedly emphasized for years that it was possible that NASA had already discovered life on Mars. But the majority of the research community disagrees.

Find life on Mars? Two researchers are convinced of this

Now another scientist comes to the scene and supports Levin’s thesis. Dirk Schulze-Makuch, an astrobiologist at the Technical University of Berlin, writes in one such article Guest article on Big Think portal: “I’ve made a suggestion that some people might find provocative: that we found life on Mars nearly 50 years ago — but we accidentally killed it.”

To understand the Schulze-McCuch theory, you must know the experiments conducted by Viking probes at that time and what their results looked like. Experiments targeting microbial metabolism and organic synthesis found evidence of life, while another instrument yielded no such results. An instrument designed to search for organic compounds detected traces of chlorinated organic matter – but at the time it was interpreted as pollution from the ground.

NASA’s Viking probes are said to have discovered life on Mars

“Vikings” project scientist Gerald Sauvin then uttered the phrase “no bodies, no life.” But today, things may look different, as Schulz-Makuch suspects in his article. A lot has changed in Mars research since the Viking probes. Many landers and other rovers have visited and explored Mars – many of them discovering organic compounds on the Red Planet, most recently NASA’s Perseverance rover. “Would Sovin still say categorically today that Viking’s test results were negative?” Schultz-Makuch asks himself.

In his article, Schulz-Makuch delves into this issue: Since Earth is a water planet, it was thought at the time to add water to experiments on Mars in order to “attract” life out of the extremely dry Martian environment. In retrospect, that approach may not have been optimal, he said. He and other experts have now discovered that in extremely dry environments on Earth there are microbes that live in salty rocks and don’t need rain—a certain amount of moisture in the atmosphere is enough for them.