All articles tagged with #viking mission
A 50-year-old scientific conclusion from the Viking Mars mission, which declared Mars lifeless due to the absence of detected organics, is now believed to be mistaken. New evidence from recent missions suggests that Mars may harbor or have harbored life, prompting a reevaluation of past assumptions and the need for dedicated future missions to search for life on Mars.
Astrobiologist Dirk Schulze-Makuch suggests that NASA's Viking landers may have accidentally killed potential Martian life in the 1970s by using water-based experiments, which could have been harmful to life forms adapted to Mars' arid conditions. He argues that Martian life might rely on salt deposits to draw moisture, similar to organisms in Earth's driest regions, and proposes focusing on salts in future life-detection missions on Mars.