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Judi Lynn

(160,631 posts)
Tue Jul 10, 2018, 11:17 AM Jul 2018

Whoops! NASA burned best evidence for life on Mars 40 years ago

10 July 2018

By Shannon Hall

NASA recently announced its Curiosity rover had discovered complex organic molecules – key raw materials for life as we know it – on the surface of Mars. But now it seems a previous NASA probe may have made the same discovery more than 40 years ago, then accidentally burned it up.

In 1976, NASA’s twin Viking landers conducted the first experiments that searched for organic matter on the Red Planet. Researchers had long known that all planets receive a steady rain of carbon-rich micrometeorites and dust from space, meaning that Mars should be smothered in organic molecules. But the Viking landers found nothing, leaving researchers dumbstruck.

“It was just completely unexpected and inconsistent with what we knew,” says Chris McKay at NASA’s Ames Research Centre in Mountain View, California.

Haunted by Mars’s missing molecules, researchers proposed one explanation after another, but none seemed to fit – until yet another probe came into play.

More:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2173751-whoops-nasa-burned-best-evidence-for-life-on-mars-40-years-ago/?cmpid=ILC|NSNS|2018_webpush&utm_medium=ILC&utm_source=NSNS&utm_campaign=webpush-Roost-lifeonMarsburned

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Crutchez_CuiBono

(7,725 posts)
2. so...
Tue Jul 10, 2018, 11:28 AM
Jul 2018

nasa keeps getting the proof they need, but destroys it. then they need more massive funding to re-gain the evidence? What a shit show. One trip to Mars pays for a whole lot of comfort in healthcare and infrastructure for AMERICANS...AND WE JUST SPIN OUR WHEELS. There is no god. We are controlled by religions and shamed by the church leaders. We are not alone in the universe and they've known it for decades. Yet, they still blow smoke about/acting like they're being diligent in finding it..for the first time. Meanwhile...pay your taxes and shut up.

DetlefK

(16,423 posts)
3. ??? They haven't found aliens. They have found organic molecules.
Tue Jul 10, 2018, 11:38 AM
Jul 2018

Also, mistakes get made in science, because you don't even know in advance WHAT you are looking for.

Crutchez_CuiBono

(7,725 posts)
4. How do you know what exactly they HAVE found?
Tue Jul 10, 2018, 11:40 AM
Jul 2018

Are you sure no aliens? Bc Astronauts themselves have seen spacecraft in lunar orbit, and from the Space Station. But, how would we know right? All evidence goes in the shredder, and eventually, astronauts die.

Crutchez_CuiBono

(7,725 posts)
6. I'm going from the story above.
Tue Jul 10, 2018, 11:45 AM
Jul 2018

I posted an OP here last week where even folks in here have seen ufo's. And millions of other people on earth. Have you heard of an announcement from NASA that they've confirmed ANY eyewitness report? Especially astronauts? Me either.
You keep doing what your doing. I'm at work.

DetlefK

(16,423 posts)
11. How come that in the age of Smartphones there are less and less photos of ufos?
Tue Jul 10, 2018, 12:06 PM
Jul 2018

Cameras are literally everywhere. We have Smartphones, we have dash-cams, we have quadcopter-drones with cameras that people fly for sport, we have go-pro cameras that people stick on their helmets when doing dangerous stunts, we have security-cams everywhere. People post millions and possibly billions of new photos daily on Instagramm, Facebook and whatnot.

So how come that we have eyewitnesses of ufos but no photos of ufos?

Isn't it also remarkable that christian saints stopped working miracles once the photographic camera was invented?




Also, my favorite eyewitnesses are the people who are eyewitnesses that Earth is flat. There is a famous experiment, where they supposedly prove that the "spherical drop-off" isn't real. Except they always make the same mistake (they never, never use a spirit level to ensure that their telescope is actually leveled horizontally), rendering their whole measurements meaningless every single time.
And yet, despite their obviously flawed and thus meaningless observation, they keep insisting that they saw that the world is flat.

Judi Lynn

(160,631 posts)
13. NASA Discovered Evidence of Life on Mars 40 Years Ago, Then Set It On Fire
Thu Jul 12, 2018, 07:31 PM
Jul 2018

By Brandon Specktor, Senior Writer | July 12, 2018 04:40pm ET

In the late 1970s, two Viking robots sailed to Mars, pillaged the soil and burnt any traces of life they found.

That was never the plan, of course. When NASA first landed the twin spacecraft named Viking 1 and Viking 2 on the surface of Mars 40 years ago, scientists were ecstatic to finally start studying Martian soil for signs of organic (carbon-based) molecules that could prove the Red Planet was hospitable for life. It should've been a slam-dunk mission. The pockmarked face of Mars was constantly being pelted with tiny, carbon-rich meteorites, after all — detecting signs of that carbon was thought to have been a sure thing.

But it wasn't. After half a decade of studying the planet, neither of the Viking landers could find any evidence of organic matter. Why not? NASA's Curiosity rover confirmed the presence of organic molecules on Mars earlier this year, so what was Viking missing?

A new paper, published June 20 in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, provides an explanation. The carbon was there all along, the researchers wrote; unfortunately, the Viking landers set it all on fire. [7 Everyday Things That Happen Strangely in Space]

More:
https://www.livescience.com/63048-proof-of-mars-life-accidentally-burned.html

muriel_volestrangler

(101,376 posts)
14. Thanks (I still got blocked by New Scientist, even in incognito mode)
Sat Jul 14, 2018, 10:42 AM
Jul 2018

Interesting. I guess this shows you have to think widely before designing anything for an unknown environment.

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