Scientist: NASA found life on Mars – and killed it
Two NASA space probes that visited Mars 30 years ago may have found alien microbes on the Red Planet and inadvertently killed them, a scientist is theorizing.
The Viking space probes of 1976-77 were looking for the wrong kind of life, so they didn’t recognize it, a geology professor at Washington State University said.
[…]
Based on a more expansive view of where life can take root, the paper’s findings may prompt NASA to look for a different type of Martian life when its next spacecraft to visit Mars is launched later this year, one of the space agency’s top scientists said.
Given the cold dry conditions of Mars, life could have evolved on Mars with the key internal fluid consisting of a mix of water and hydrogen peroxide, said Schulze-Makuch.
That’s because a water-hydrogen peroxide mix stays liquid at very low temperatures, or -68 degrees Fahrenheit, and doesn’t destroy cells when it freezes. It can suck water vapor out of the air.
The Viking experiments of the 1970s wouldn’t have noticed hydrogen peroxide-based life and, in fact, would have killed it by drowning and overheating the microbes, said Schulze-Makuch.
Star Trek got it right.
If there was an extra in a red shirt in a landing party, you could pretty well rest assured that he would die in the next scene. The aliens didn’t fare much better. Despite their mission to “seek out new life”, they almost invariably ended up killing any aliens they ran across.
What they do to the life, step on it?
Venom Monger,
Keeping true to Star Trek, I can only assume that the microbes tried to attack the Viking probes first. It was purely self defense.
sarcasm
Personally, I think that some of the rovers that went over to Mars, and weren’t heard from again, were destroyed by the Martian people, who see what the US is doing here, and want no part of it!
/sarcasm
Must have been Bush’s fault.
#7, It only took 7 posts for someone to get it right. Good call.
Bush is God after all – everything that’s ever happened is his fault.
This one was a little tougher since it involved the secret time machine at Area51.
#9, I know. Few people are unaware that when Bush was AWOL from the Air National Guard, he was actually in Area 51. His task was to keep the Time Machine wound with that big key.
So that hole in the fabric of time is simply because somebody forgot to wind the Time Machine.
The scary part is when given the option, Bush is on record as saying he wouldn’t change anything. Maybe he knows something we mere mortals don’t.