Is there life on Mars?

According to a new study of bacteria living in harsh environments, some species of bacteria can tolerate conditions on Mars. According to another study, the Viking probes launched by NASA in 1975 are not sensitive enough to detect them.

Mars surface (universetoday.com)

The Viking mission did not find evidence of a biological activity on Mars soil. GC-MS spectrometer has heated soil samples to turn them into a gas mixture for analysis. GC-MS tools are not sensitive enough to detect the smallest traces of organic matter.

Researchers Rafael Navarro-Gonzalez and colleagues at the University of Mexico analyzed soil samples in the Atacama desert or Rio Tinto in Spain with spectral lines of Viking ships and never detected birth traces. learn, while other instruments have found organic molecules.

Other missions may one day allow detection of microbes that can withstand extreme conditions, such as Dr. Neill Reid and his colleagues. The group of researchers tested for two years the limits of single-celled organisms that preferred salinity spawning at temperatures of -1 ^° C or producing methane spawning at temperatures of -2 ^° C under conditions similar to the underground Mars.

NASA is expected in 2009 to put on Mars Mars Science lab also equipped with a GC-MS spectrometer but more sensitive than the instruments of the 70s.

NS