How NASA burned evidence of life on Mars before time

Photo: Profimedia

Since the robot "Kuriosity" started its mission on Mars, we have learned a lot about the red planet, including the fact that it houses molecules complex organic compounds. What is particularly relevant for the presence of these carbon-based compounds should be considered a prerequisite for life.

But the "Kuriosity", which landed on March 2013, is not the first device to discover organic matter on the fourth planet. of the sun. During the Viking mission of the 1970s, no such evidence was found, but the "New Scientist" wrote that NASA would have accidentally burned traces of organic molecules from Mars.

A team of scientists from the US Space Agency, led by Christopher Mechey, now believes how to erase the entire situation – according to researchers, at least one landing unit "Viking" detected the organic material, but the machine that operated it remotely triggered a valuable discovery when analyzing the data

The assumption is applicable because of the presence of 39; a substance discovered by scientists on Mars 10 years ago – in 2008, a phoenix lantern discovered a toxic salt compound called perchlorate on a red planet. On Earth, it is extremely flammable and among others used in pyrotechnics. On Mars, it's cold, so it's unlikely that it will turn on.

However, the lender" Viking "raised the causes of the ground of Mars to 500 degrees. perchlorate among the ingredients, sensitive organic molecules are probably destroyed immediately after heating, according to the Business Insider.

Analyzing new data from "Kuriosity", McQueen and his team consider that the same scenario as the "Phoenix" is probably In 2013, "Kuriosity" detected not only organic substances, but also chlorobenzene molecules, which are produced when carbon reacts with perchlorate.

<! –

Notification paragraph trigger test

->