Did NASA's probe burn organic molecules on Mars 40 years ago?

It may sound a little weird, but a NASA probe may have accidentally destroyed organic molecules found on the surface of Mars more than 40 years ago, according to a report by New Scientist. The US space agency announced in June that its robot explorer Curiosity had discovered organic molecules in rocks formed three billion years ago – a finding that could indicate that there was some life on the red planet at this time. However, in 1976, NASA's two Viking landers conducted the first organic matter search experiments on the Red Planet.

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Scientists have suspected for decades that organic matter exists on Mars. "But the researchers were stunned in 1976, when NASA sent two Viking landers to Mars to look for organic compounds for the first time and found absolutely nothing." "It was totally unexpected and inconsistent with what we knew," said Chris McKay, a global scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center.
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In 2008, NASA's Phoenix satellite found perchlorate, a type of salt used primarily for propellants and for making fireworks. "The discovery of perchlorate has rekindled scientists' beliefs about the possibility of finding organic matter on Mars." Among the organic molecules recently discovered by Curiosity are chlorobenzene.
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"This molecule is created when carbon molecules burn with perchlorate, so scientists suspect that it could have been created when soil samples were burned during Viking exploration. "In a separate study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, a team at the LATMOS research center in France revisited the Viking lander data, and found that Viking landers also detected chlorobenzene.

According to Melissa Guzman, a scientist at the LATMOS research center, while the results are interesting, the chlorobenzene could come from equipment carried by the earth probe, but some researchers are convinced, according to Daniel Glavin, astrobiologist At NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, which was not involved in the study, NASA's Viking landers were sent to Mars to look for any signs of life and study physical properties. and Magnetic Soil and Atmosphere The probes continued their mission until the last transmission to Earth on November 11, 198 2 (Viking 1) and April 11, 1980 (Viking 2).

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