Is there life on Mars and has it been overlooked? Just over forty years ago, in May 1977, those responsible for NASA’s Viking Martian exploration program concluded biological analyzes of the red planet’s soil and atmosphere. The probes, which reached their destination respectively in July and September 1976, were specially equipped to carry out a series of specific tests, including one designed to analyze the atmosphere for gases of biological origin in significant quantities. The study of the soil, meanwhile, was carried out through four biochemical tests.
After months of studying the data obtained, the official conclusion of NASA was that there was no life on Mars, but even today there are discordant voices. In 2016, the one who was responsible for one of the experiments carried out by the Vikings, Gilbert Levin, published together with the biologist Patricia Ann Straat a shocking article in the journal Astrobiology . In it, he defends what he has been maintaining in recent decades: the experimental tests of the Vikings indicate that on the surface of the red planet there are microorganisms capable of surviving in the harsh conditions of the Martian environment . For both, Mars is a world with life, an idea that today only a small group of scientists share.
In addition, other experts point out that some of the devices that the Vikings used to examine the samples, precisely those whose measurements ruled out the presence of biological activity, did not work properly. Already in 2006, a team of researchers led by the Mexican chemist and biologist Rafael Navarro González demonstrated that the sensitivity of one of the devices, which was intended to find organic compounds and did not detect anything, was several orders of magnitude lower than what was thought. In fact, this instrument declared a sample collected in Antarctica sterile, in which subsequent analyzes showed the presence of organic matter. Other devices were also unable to detect thermoacidophilic microbes, capable of surviving in acidic environments at temperatures of more than 60 ºC, to others that can withstand temperatures well below zero.
How is it possible? Viking experiments were designed to search for life forms from the knowledge of the 1960s and 70s, but it was not until the early 1980s that a class of microorganisms that could live in the most unfriendly conditions was discovered: Extremophiles . Thus, we may simply not know what to look for on Mars.
You can read the entire article “Mars, an animated world”, written by Miguel Ángel Sabadell , in issue 433 of Muy Interesante.
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Imagen: NASA / JPL-Caltech / University of Arizona
