Theory: Viking Landers may have detected and killed Martian Microbes in 1970s

[Ian David]

Probes may have turned killers on Mars


Associated Press
Monday January 8, 2007
Guardian Unlimited



A photo showing Chryse Planitia, a smooth circular plain in the northern equatorial region of the planet Mars, taken by the Viking 1 Camera in August 1975. Photograph: Nasa/AP

<snip>

An American scientist has told a convention of astronomers that two Nasa space probes which visited Mars 30 years ago may have found alien microbes on Mars - and then inadvertently killed them.

The problem was that while the Viking space probes of 1976-1977 were not looking for the little green men of science fiction comics, they were still looking for the wrong kind of life and so would not recognise the microbes if they found them.

Dirk Schulze-Makuch, a geology professor at Washington State University, told a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle that the Viking mission was looking for Earth-like life, in which salt water is the internal liquid of living cells.

However, Prof Schulze-Makuch says that, given the cold dry conditions of Mars, life could have evolved with the internal fluid consisting of a mix of water and hydrogen peroxide.

The Viking experiments of the 1970s would not have noticed alien hydrogen peroxide-based life and would have killed it by drowning and overheating the microbes, he claimed.

One experiment seeking life on Mars poured water on soil, which would have drowned hydrogen peroxide-based life. A different investigation heated the soil to see if something would happen, but that would have baked Martian microbes.

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/space/article/0,,1985299,00.html

[bryant69]

1. So kind of the opposite of War of the Worlds?

Or is it exactly the same.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Mikey929]

2. ?

That's an awfully big MAY have.

[Ian David]

5. Yes, it is. But the next life-finding experiments will be interesting either way. n/t

[meegbear]

3. Damn Vikings!

Plunder somewhere else!

[Ian David]

4. You mean, "Bloody Vikings!"

[AnneD]

6. BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

All I could think about was Kurt Vonnegut and Breakfast of Champions. God, I'm getting more cynical by the hour.

[ProfessorGAC]

7. Planet Wide?

The article provides limited background on the science behind this, but it seems wildly speculative to me. The subsequent missions found nothing of this sort on which to even speculate.

And, since H2O2 is an oxidizing liquid which is completely soluble in water, even at elevated temperature (if H2O2 concentrations are modest), then the overheating would have been so high as to have killed earth microbes.

And, if the oxygen source were the peroxide, one would surmise that said lifeforms would need less frequent contact with the atmosphere to renew the oxygen interface from which the peroxidation would take place. So, drowning them with water seems less likely than the article suggests.

There are some big holes in this hypothesis.
The Professor

[Avalux]

8. Wow - bad science.

All of this is conjecture; there's absolutely no proof of life on Mars, so what's the point? :crazy:

[Ian David]

9. The point is that we should be more creative in our search. n/t

[ProfessorGAC]

10. You Sure That's The Point?

The drowning and overheating conjecture don't even make sense. Would creativity include things that cannot physically occur based upon our knowledge of physics and chemistry? That's not creativity. That's a belief in magic.
The Professor

[zbdent]

11. Dang, those Martians seemed tougher in the movies ...

You know, like the dinosaurs that the reichwingers think were with the humans a few thousand years back ... before the great flood ...

[eppur_se_muova]

12. H2O2 is unstable stuff, see my post in another thread in GD.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=3064975&mesg_id=3065044

If you want to see the effect of iron catalysis on H2O2, pour some on a small wound -- or get some beef or poultry blood and add it to a small container of H2O2. The hemoglobin in blood catalyzes the decomposition of H2O2 to H2O and O2. If you ever took a dry cell apart for its MnO2 (Mn2O3 in a spent cell), you probably know that manganese compounds do the same thing, as do bromide ions. So many things catalyze the decomposition of H2O2 that it is not surprising that is has never been found in Nature except in minute concentrations, where it is formed by some reactions of O2, and decomposes as fast as it forms.

on edit: GD, not Science.

[Ian David]

13. What if something were to use that reaction as the key to a chemosynthesis metabolism?

In any case, there were some odd peroxide-like reactions discovered in the Viking experiments.

And even if the next round of experiments to detect "Peroxiphillic" life forms doesn't detect Martian microbes, it's still bound to tell us something interesting about Martian soil-- even if the one thing it tells us is, "It's dead, Jim."

[DavidDvorkin]

14. I worked on Viking in the early 70s

I feel so guilty! I was a participant in ethnic cleansing!