Is this proof of life on Mars?
The Curiosity rover is currently on its way to Mars, scheduled to make a dramatic landing within Gale Crater in mid-August and begin its hunt for the geologic signatures of a watery, life-friendly past. Solid evidence that large volumes of water existed on Mars at some point would be a major step forward in the search for life on the Red Planet.
But鈥� has it already been found? Some scientists say yes.
Researchers from universities in Los Angeles, California, Tempe, Arizona and Siena, Italy have published a paper in the International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences (IJASS) citing the results of their work with data obtained by NASA鈥檚 Viking mission.
The twin Viking 1 and 2 landers launched in August and September of 1975 and successfully landed on Mars in July and September of the following year. Their principal mission was to search for life, which they did by digging into the ruddy Martian soil looking for signs of respiration 鈥� a signal of biological activity.
The results, although promising, were inconclusive.
Now, 35 years later, one team of researchers claims that the Viking landers did indeed detect life, and the data鈥檚 been there all along.
鈥淎ctive soils exhibited rapid, substantial gas release,鈥� the team鈥檚 report states. 鈥淭he gas was probably CO2 and, possibly, other radiocarbon-containing gases.鈥�
By applying mathematical complexities to the Viking data for deeper analysis, the researchers found that the Martian samples behaved differently than a non-biological control group.
鈥淐ontrol responses that exhibit relatively low initial order rapidly devolve into near-random noise, while the active experiments exhibit higher initial order which decays only slowly,鈥� the paper states. 鈥淭his suggests a robust biological response.鈥�
While some critics of the findings claim that such a process of identifying life has not yet been perfected 鈥� not even here on Earth 鈥� the results are certainly intriguing鈥� enough to bolster support for further investigation into Viking data and perhaps re-evaluate the historic mission鈥檚 鈥渋nconclusive鈥� findings.
The team鈥檚 paper can be found .
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