Scientists: Life on Mars was discovered already, 36 years ago

[KingOrfeo]

Story.

New analysis of 36-year-old data, resuscitated from printouts, shows that NASA found life on Mars, an international team of mathematicians and scientists conclude in a paper published this week.

Further, NASA doesn't need a human expedition to Mars to nail down the claim, neuropharmacologist and biologist Joseph Miller, with the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine, told Discovery News.

"The ultimate proof is to take a video of a Martian bacteria. They should send a microscope — watch the bacteria move," Miller said.

"On the basis of what we've done so far, I'd say I'm 99 percent sure there's life there," he added.

Miller's confidence stems in part from a new study that reanalyzed results from a life-detection experiment conducted by NASA's Viking Mars robots in 1976.

Researchers crunched raw data collected during runs of the Labeled Release experiment, which looked for signs of microbial metabolism in soil samples scooped up and processed by the two Viking landers. General consensus of scientists has been that the experiment found geological, not biological, activity.

Wait -- they never before sent a probe equipped with a microscope?!

 

[shoulderblade]

Interesting. Do you have a source?

 

[KRCummings]

I believe a microscope was on one of the failed missions if I recall correctly. There's really not a whole lot a probe can do with a microscope so there's probably not a lot of call to try it again.

 

[Stewart_Pidd]

they should just send Bill Nye to Mars bro!

Stew

 

[KingOrfeo]

they should just send Bill Nye to Mars bro!

Stew

Is it important to get him back? 'Cause that would, like, double the cost of the expedition, you know.

Robot probes don't ask to be brought back.

 

[Sean Renaud]

Is it important to get him back? 'Cause that would, like, double the cost of the expedition, you know.

Robot probes don't ask to be brought back.

He's kinda obsolete at this point. So no it's not important to get him back.

 

[Stewart_Pidd]

Is it important to get him back? 'Cause that would, like, double the cost of the expedition, you know.

Robot probes don't ask to be brought back.

then send Beakman from Beakman's World bro!

Stew

 

[phrodeau]

They would have had to pack another hi-res camera for the microscope, and the highest resolution camera Viking 1 had was 517x512 pixels.

 

[KingOrfeo]

They would have had to pack another hi-res camera for the microscope, and the highest resolution camera Viking 1 had was 517x512 pixels.

Would the necessary camera have existed (even for NASA) in 1976?

If so, why didn't they use it, I wonder? Cost-saving? Weight-saving? Nobody thought of it?

 

[phrodeau]

Would the necessary camera have existed (even for NASA) in 1976?

If so, why didn't they use it, I wonder? Cost-saving? Weight-saving? Nobody thought of it?

They probably figured that the chemical tests would be more reliable. The cameras were needed for the landscape, so they could decide where to dig.

 

[daddie]

According to attorney and original Project Pegasus participant Andy Basiago .gov has known about life on Mars since 1971.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHkhV9v9wqQ

Initially I caught his act when George Noory interviewed Basiago in November 2011.

Listening to Basiago spin his tales I learned starting in 1968 .gov was teleporting six year-old children between Jersey and New Mexico; as well as sending young children back in time to witness Abe Lincoln offer the Gettysburg Address.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

There have even been claims of finding fossilized evidence in meteorites...

Critics counter that the method has not yet been proven effective for differentiating between biological and non-biological processes on Earth, so it's premature to draw any conclusions.