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Did NASA Accidentally Burn Evidence Of Life On Mars When They Found It?

Did NASA Accidentally Burn Evidence Of Life On Mars When They Found It?

A raft of stories online are suggesting that NASA found life on Mars in the mid-70s - but then accidentally burned the proof. Is this true?

Mike Wood

Mike Wood

You kind of expect NASA to get stuff right.

I mean: they're NASA, the epitome of egghead, the go to guys for the title of smartest guy in the room. According to reports, however, they really stuff it up from time to time.

There's a story going around the Internet, as reported by Business Insider, that they managed to find life on Mars in 1976, only to accidentally destroy it. The 40-year-old story refers to the Viking mission, which landed on Mars in the mid-70s - and, if reports are to be believed, found evidence of organic matter.

The story goes that they then accidentally destroyed the organic matter by burning it, but a few counter stories - written by nerds so I'm going to believe them - claim the complete opposite.

Viking Lander 1 reachers Mars' surface in 1976.
PA

The story holds that NASA burned the materials of life on Mars. As Business Insider describe it, a 'toxic, salty compound' called 'perchlorate' was found on Mars in 2008 by NASA's Phoenix Lander.

The compound is extremely flammable here on Earth, making it a handy ingredient for fireworks, although there's less chance of it burning on Mars due to the red planet's cool atmosphere.

For reasons best known to the scienticians responsible for space travel, however, the Viking Lander heated samples from the planet's soil to 500 degrees. Now, as we've already established, perchlorate burns easily, meaning bad news for any organic molecules also in the soil - researchers have established they probably would've been destroyed immediately when heated.

So NASA found organic life, and immediately tried some test that inadvertently set it on fire. Right? No, according to science website CNET.

Of course, we all know what life on Mars looks like.
Warner Bros.

"To understand the real story, we have to briefly go back to 1976 when NASA's twin Viking landers arrived on the Red Planet and scooped up some Martian dirt," explains the site's Eric Mack.

"The soil was then heated in the landers' special ovens to allow for an on-board Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer (GCMS) to detect any organic molecules within.

"To the surprise of many at the time, the results showed the samples appeared to be devoid of any such organics, which are often referred to as the building blocks of life."

He goes on to explain how those 'building blocks of life' - point number one of a billion-point-long story - are very, very different to actual life.

Footage of Mars' landscape from NASA's Curiosity rover.
PA

"To be clear," he writes, "the building blocks of life and life itself are very, very different things.

"The building blocks of life are pretty widespread throughout the universe.

"In fact, they're flying around on comets right now. Does that mean there's life on comets? Not that we've seen."

So that about clears it up. I think. I'm going for a lie down now.

Featured Image Credit: PA

Topics: Science, World News, mars, Nasa