Mars Life? NASA Viking Probes Found Martian Microbes Decades Ago, New Study Suggests

Is there life on Mars after all?

A provocative new study concludes that the twin robotic probes NASA put on Mars in 1976 may have detected signs of "microbial life" on the Red Planet. At the time, researchers concluded that the Viking 1 and 2 probes had detected no such signs--and the same is true of subsequent probes, landers, and rovers sent to Mars, according to Popular Science.

The study involved an analysis of data collected by the so-called "labeled release" apparatus aboard the landers. One of three onboard life-seeking devices, the LR apparatus mixed samples of Mars soil with water and a nutrient solution containing radioactive carbon atoms. The idea was that any microbes in the soil would metabolize the nutrient and release carbon dioxide or methane gas--which would then be detected.

"The minute the nutrients were mixed with the soil sample, you got something like 10,000 counts" of radioactive molecules--a huge spike from the 50 or 60 counts that constituted the natural background radiation on Mars, study co-author Joseph Miller, associate professor of cell and neurobiology at the University of Southern California, told National Geographic. But other experiments on the landers were not backed up by other life-detecting experiements on the landers, according to NatGeo.

So most scientists dismissed the idea that Martian life had been detected.

But using sophisticated mathematical techniques, Miller and his co-authors found evidence that the LR apparatus had detected lifer. Still, according to NatGeo, the researchers conceded that their study isn't enough to prove there's life on Mars. Miller told the magazine he didn't expect people to be convinced of Martian life until they could see a video of Martian microbes in a petri dish.

"But for some reason, NASA has never flown a microscope that would let you do something like that," he said.

What does NASA say about the new study? "There is still enough uncertainty with our knowledge of Mars that more research is required to resolve the question of whether there ever was or is life on Mars," an agency spokesman told The Huffington Post in an email. "The exploration of Mars is about to experience a leap in capability with the arrival in August on the Martian surface of NASA’s Curiosity Rover. One instrument on Curiosity is designed to discover the nature of oxidants in the Martian soil which will shed light on the Viking results."

We can't wait!

Also on HuffPost:

PHOTOS: THE VIKING MISSIONS

Loading Slideshow

• Liftoff

  Viking 1 launches from NASA's Kennedy Space Center on August 20, 1975, bound for Mars. A twin spacecraft, Viking 2, followed about three weeks later.

• The Mission

  Each Viking spacecraft had two parts--an orbiter (top left) and lander (bottom left). After orbiting Mars and scouting for landing sites, the orbiter and lander would separate. Then the lander, protected from intense hear by an "aeroshell," would parachute to a safe landing (right).

• In Mars Orbit

  This image from June 29, 1976, shows a 30 mile wide swath of Chryse Planitia dominated by Belz Crater. It's known as a "rampant crater" because of the raised ridge around the inner layer of ejecta, material thrown out from a volcano or meteor impact.

• Landing

  Viking 1 touched down on July 20, 1976, seven years to the day after the first moon landing. Just minutes later, the lander took this photograph, the first picture ever taken in the surface of Mars.

• Stars And Stripes

  At left, the American flag is seen on the Viking 1 lander with the bicentennial symbol and Viking symbol below. At right, the six foot long rock known as "Big Joe" looms about 25 feet from the lander.

• First Color Image

  This is the first color image of the surface of Mars, snapped by Viking 1 the day after landing. The rocky wasteland, covered by iron oxide, at last provided an image to match the nickname "red planet."

• In The Trenches

  Viking 1's sampling arm created a number of deep trenches in the red planet's soil as part of surface composition and biology experiments.

• The "Face"

  Meanwhile, the Viking 1 Orbiter continued to snap intriguing photos of the surface, like this photo from the Cydonia region that showed what many thought looked like a human face.

• The View From Orbit

  A Viking 1 Orbiter image from September 1976 shows debris flows east of the Hellas region. The image is about 174 miles across and the debris flows extend up to 12 miles from the source.

• Red Planet

  A global mosaic from 102 Viking 1 Orbiter images from February 1980 shows a full Martian hemisphere. The view represents what you would see from a spacecraft about 1500 miles high.

• Volcanic Trio

  A color mosaic from Viking 1's Orbiter shows the eastern Tharsis region. At left, from top to bottom, are the three 15 mile high volcanic shields, Ascraeus Mons, Pavonis Mons, and Arsia Mons.

• Olympus Mons

  A color mosaic from Viking 1 shows the massive Olympus Mons volcano. The largest volcano in the solar system, Olympus Mons is about the same size (in area) as the state of Arizona, nearly 375 miles in diameter and 16 miles high. A crater 50 miles wide sits atop the summit.

• Chandor Chasma

  A color mosaic from both Viking Orbiters shows a part of Valles Marineris known as Chandor Chasma. The walls and floor show evidence of erosion. The Viking 2 Lander ended communications on April 11, 1980, and the Viking 1 Lander on November 13, 1982, after transmitting over 1400 images of the two sites. The Viking 2 Orbiter was powered down on July 25, 1978 after 706 orbits, and the Viking 1 Orbiter was powered down on August 17, 1980, after over 1400 orbits.

Comments

[kinogod]

07:19 PM on 04/25/2012

Life is all over this multiverse.

[MMMatt]

03:05 AM on 04/24/2012

'Oh man! Wonder if he'll ever know
He's in the best selling show
Is there life on Mars?'

[Kermit Blackwood]

07:35 PM on 04/23/2012

Carrying "microbes" to earth from mars will have irreversible consequences.

[Bob Wood]

06:58 PM on 04/23/2012

As Carl Sagan used to say...if there isn't life elsewhere in the universe...it sure is a waste of a lot of space. It's only been a few short decades since we began to have the tools to search. My guess is there's other life somewhere...why not Mars ? The most common elements in the Universe are the same ones that make up all life on Earth...it seems reasonable life would crop up somewhere else. There's so much else for it to crop up in...(sigh)

[Mr Anonymous]

09:34 PM on 04/22/2012

I thought all of this was debunked and figured out decades ago.

The next headline: Did We Really Go to the Moon? New Evidence Suggests We Might Not Have.

Come on guys, get with the times.

[storiesfromhavendotcom]

11:43 PM on 04/22/2012

Data is data and is very often revisited. Nothing has been debunked until every lead is followed. I really do not see how you have a problem with this.

[Louis Sipher]

05:50 PM on 04/22/2012

These are the results needed to continue interest and funding for NASA. Miller and his co-authors delivered new results on old data. Great work! One can only hope to be alive to witness the discovery of life not of Earth origin. I watched Carl Sagan as a kid and was drawn to science. The next "sputnik" generation of scientists and engineers need inspiration. Nanotech and renewable energy continues to draw new students to the hard sciences, but life on Mars would truly be incredible.

Dare to dream.

[Trentonjordan]

03:38 PM on 04/21/2012

The Mars face has been explained. But what about the Mars monolith that looks like something out of '2001: A Space Odyssey'?

[JohnSawyer]

02:31 PM on 04/26/2012

The aliens dropped it on their way to Jupiter.

[Trentonjordan]

03:35 PM on 04/21/2012

A crater 50 miles wide. A volcano the size of Arizona. Wrapping your mind around these numbers is incredible. Truly amazing.

[Miketou]

01:32 PM on 04/21/2012

When I was a kid I was really excited about the space program. I was so proud of American Technology. I thought America could do anything. Today we haven't progressed that much. The shuttle was a trip to nowhere at the expense of exploration. I have a feeling the first humans to visit Mars won't be Americans. Really sad.

[storiesfromhavendotcom]

11:46 PM on 04/22/2012

Keep your excitement--- American private enterprise is now gearing up not that NASA has shown the way and did the research into the science all the world is using.

[JohnSawyer]

02:34 PM on 04/26/2012

Would that be so bad? Space, and exploring it, aren't just for Americans.

[Miketou]

03:06 AM on 04/27/2012

It wouldn't be a good thing. It would be a sign that we've lost our technological edge.

[glitterpet]

05:54 PM on 04/20/2012

The earthlings are coming! The earthlings are coming! If I were a Martian lifeform I would hide .. . but cleanup after myself a bit better! Bazinga! ;)

[antitalkingpoint]

10:05 PM on 04/19/2012

There is certainly the ability to put a microscope on Mars and examine samples that way. Should or should have been in the program. Would have won a Huffipo Pulitzer in the Huffington process, if Huffers at Huffpo ponied up some Pulitzer-strewn Hufferpost backing. I guess.

[rss0246]

09:53 PM on 04/19/2012

Hey HoPo:

All the photos in the "slide" gallery are labeled (incorrectly) "Photos:The Voyager Mission." This should read,"Photos: The Viking Missions."

Also, the caption of the first picture ("Liftoff") says (incorrectly) that "Viking I launches from NASA's Kennedy Space Center..." In fact both of the Vikings (and every other Titan rocket ever launched on the East Coast) departed not from KSC, but rather from the nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

[Rich Cash]

09:52 PM on 04/19/2012

Interesting, but hardly conclusive.

[summoningki]

08:24 PM on 04/19/2012

One has to wonder as one poster said here how something as," elemantary my dear Watson " simple as a microscope, would not be onboard a rover looking for signs of life unless they were afraid they would find it and screw up religious beliefs of many denominations. The trillions of dollars that have been wasted in wars around the globe could have been spent on among other things ( like ending world hunger, clean renewable energy etc.) having colonies on mars and the moon by now and decent spaceships to have replaced the shuttle fleet. Instead all that happens is some Earthlings from a few countries go back and forth to a space station and the country that put people on the moon back in the 70's are now using, " The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" method to go even that far. Perhaps intelligent life was already encountered and they told Earthlings in charge that they better not step outside of their tiny little area or risk "grave" consequences.

[genrel1248]

08:15 PM on 04/19/2012

Wake up people. There aint no life on Mars. Jesus came to EARTH! These microbes are just a trick by that ol' dog Satan to trick us into believing in Science.

[glitterpet]

05:51 PM on 04/20/2012

I see. . and the methane detected there would be what, then, residue from God's f*rts? Curiouser and curiouser . . . =)

[ccgndy]

07:31 AM on 04/22/2012

..and without science we are not of what we are today, tv,radio,gps, cellphone,radars,satellites,ISS, shuttles, etc..ect. it's all magic!!

[ccgndy]

07:11 AM on 04/22/2012

Mass is directly proportional to distances between objects, "Newtons Law" It was not until nine billion years after the big bang that the earth was conducive to support life. Since the sun is lossing mass through fusion of its hydrogen contents, mars went farther away and became too cold for survival, so at one point mars was in the earths orbital trajectory, and perhaps there were martians in that period of time......make sense? Although mars is smaller than the earth,aprox 4,220 miles in diameter, it is also being held by the gravitational forces of jupiter in its orbit.

[genrel1248]

09:16 AM on 04/22/2012

Wrong on several points there Kepler.

1) Mass is a property of matter and is not proportional to distance. I think you meant gravitational force is INVERSELY proportional to the SQUARE of the distance between two objects.

2) Mars was never in the orbital path of the Earth. Although the Sun is losing mass, it has lost a very small percentage of its overall mass, certainly not enough to drastically change orbital paths.

3) Jupiter's gravitational effect on Mars is negligible compared to that of the Sun.

In knew that advanced degree in physics I got would come in handy someday.