Categories: AstrobiologyMars

Is This Proof of Life on Mars?

[/caption]

The Curiosity rover is currently on its way to Mars, scheduled to make a dramatic landing within Gale Crater in mid-August and begin its hunt for the geologic signatures of a watery, life-friendly past. Solid evidence that large volumes of water existed on Mars at some point would be a major step forward in the search for life on the Red Planet.

But… has it already been found? Some scientists say yes.

Researchers from universities in Los Angeles, California, Tempe, Arizona and Siena, Italy have published a paper in the International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences (IJASS) citing the results of their work with data obtained by NASA’s Viking mission.

The twin Viking 1 and 2 landers launched in August and September of 1975 and successfully landed on Mars in July and September of the following year. Their principal mission was to search for life, which they did by digging into the ruddy Martian soil looking for signs of respiration — a signal of biological activity.

A six-inch-deep trench in the Martian soil dug by Viking 1 in February 1977. The goal was to reach a foot below the surface for sampling.

The results, although promising, were inconclusive.

Now, 35 years later, one team of researchers claims that the Viking landers did indeed detect life, and the data’s been there all along.

“Active soils exhibited rapid, substantial gas release,” the  team’s report states. “The gas was probably CO2 and, possibly, other radiocarbon-containing gases.”

By applying mathematical complexities to the Viking data for deeper analysis, the researchers found that the Martian samples behaved differently than a non-biological control group.

“Control responses that exhibit relatively low initial order rapidly devolve into near-random noise, while the active experiments exhibit higher initial order which decays only slowly,” the paper states. “This suggests a robust biological response.”

While some critics of the findings claim that such a process of identifying life has not yet been perfected — not even here on Earth — the results are certainly intriguing… enough to bolster support for further investigation into Viking data and perhaps re-evaluate the historic mission’s “inconclusive” findings.

The team’s paper can be found here.

Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech. Also, read more on Irene Klotz’s article on Discovery News.

Jason Major

A graphic designer in Rhode Island, Jason writes about space exploration on his blog Lights In The Dark, Discovery News, and, of course, here on Universe Today. Ad astra!

Recent Posts

A Hyper Velocity Star Found with an Exoplanet Hanging on for Dear Life

Hypervelocity stars have been seen before but NASA scientists have just identified a potential record-breaking…

3 hours ago

Efforts to Detect Alien Life Advanced by Simple Microbe Mobility Test

Finding alien life may have just got easier! If life does exist on other worlds…

3 hours ago

Curiosity’s Other Important Job: Studying Martian Clouds

MSL Curiosity is primarily a rockhound. It's at Gale Crater, examining the rocks there and…

7 hours ago

A Balloon With a Tether Could Explore Venus’ Surface

Venus is very variable. Its surface constantly changes from volcanic activity, and the difference between…

11 hours ago

Hydrogels Could Be Ideal Radiation Protection For Astronauts

Hydrogel protection could be crucial for safe human space exploration. It’s a key problem that…

14 hours ago

To Probe the Interior of Neutron Stars, We Must Study the Gravitational Waves from their Collisions

When massive stars reach the end of their life cycle, they undergo gravitational collapse and…

1 day ago