Unintentional Destruction: The Lost Opportunity to Discover Life on Mars

The Viking landers, sent to Mars in the 1970s, conducted the only life detection experiments on another planet. The results were initially confusing, with some tests suggesting the presence of life while others did not. Recent discoveries have shown that indigenous organic compounds do exist on Mars, but in a different form than expected. A new hypothesis suggests that the Viking experiments may have inadvertently killed Martian life by applying water to the soil samples, overwhelming the microbes. The presence of hygroscopic salts and hydrogen peroxide in Martian soil could explain the puzzling results. A new mission dedicated to life detection on Mars is needed to further investigate this hypothesis.