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NASA recently announced that its mercenary Curiosity Mars had discovered complex organic molecules – the main raw materials we know for life. But now it turns out that the old NASA probe could make the same discovery more than 40 years ago, it was only accidentally burned.
In 1976, NASA's Viking Twins conducted the first experiments on organic matter. Researchers have long known that the entire planet is constantly bombarded by micrometers and high-carbon dust, so Mars should be covered with organic molecules. But the Viking research rig found nothing in this embarrbading researcher
"It was completely unexpected and at odds with what we knew," says Chris McKay of NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View California.
The idea that Marse is not organic
Marshal NASA in Phoenix, near the North Pole of Mars, discovered in 2008 strange salts, the so-called perchlorates, with the Phoenix mercenary NASA. This is not a problem on the surface of Mars because it is cold, but by searching for organic materials, the Viking Marsaetels have cast samples of Martian soils to conceal the molecules they contain. Perchlorates in the soil could have burned all the organic matter directly, hiding their presence.
Following this discovery, McKay and his colleagues rekindled the belief that Marsea has organic matter. "Suddenly, you get new ideas and realize that everything you think is wrong," he says. But the opinion of the scientific community was not unanimous. Some people said they had organic matter on the surface of Mars, others were confident that she was sterile.
The only recent discoveries of Marshal Curiosity allowed the researchers to detect these materials and dispel doubts about Marshal's predecessor. Curiosity has also discovered chlorobenzene.
This molecule – in which six carbon atoms form in the form of a honeycomb and five other carbon atoms and a hydrogen in the corners are obtained when the carbon molecules burn in the perchlorates. Therefore, these are indirect indications that Marsean organic matter is present and that they might have been discovered by the Vikings.
Having this in mind, Melissa Guzman of the LATMA Research Center in France, McKay and their colleagues began digging up Viking data. In addition, he detected chlorobenzene, probably derived from burning organic matter (Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, doi.org/crvx).
Guzman treats carefully and says that there is not 100% belief that chlorobenzene was formed due to the burning of organic matter Martian
Non-Research Daniel Glavin of Goddard Cosmic NASA's Flight Center in Meriland says that this compiler is so complex that it should have been formed from missing Mars molecules.
] "This article really complements the case." He thinks that the study will eventually convince people that the Vikings did not come back empty. According to Curiosity's findings, it seems that organic matter exists at more than one place on Mars – maybe it really covers the planet.
Shannon Hall
www.newscientist.com
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