By now you’ve probably heard of the rumor that the Phoenix lander found something so significant on Mars that the White House was briefed about it, and that people are speculating that this means there were once conditions for life on Mars, or even that life’s by-products were detected.
Yeah, well, you know how I feel about Mars and rumors (or any space-based rumors in general). This one smells like baloney to me.
And whaddyaknow, Emily has more details. She even has some science. Based on evidence and everything!
OK, snark mode off. Basically, one instrument on Phoenix found a chemical that precludes organic life from having existed on Mars, while another instrument found no trace of that chemical in its samples. This is interesting, even surprising, but the main point is it isn’t clear. We can’t say one way or another.
It seems to me that if the data aren’t clear, then a White House briefing was unwarranted, and therefore unlikely to have occurred. I may be wrong, but the evidence points that way.
NASA will be having a press briefing on this at 2:00 p.m. EDT tomorrow (Tuesday), and Emily will be covering it. We’ll learn more then.
August 4th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
Oh, the fundagelicals (in the White House and elsewhere) will use this as more proof that science just can’t make up its mind about anything. As the late Dr. D. James Kennedy used to bray from his pulpit it seems that everyday scientists change their minds about something that they claimed with absolute certainty the day before. We know that only the Bible holds the absolute truth .
BTW belated kudos on your JREF gig. You’re way cooler than that other folliclely challenged Dr. Phil.
August 4th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
What we need is another mission to mars, just to be sure.
August 4th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
I suggest we make a whole bunch of bologna sandwiches and send the entire White House up to Mars to sort out this confusion.
August 4th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Phoenix twittered that the White House briefing rumor was bunk.
August 4th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Why would the presence of perchlorate automatically negate the presence of organic life? Are we looking for Earth organic life, or Martian? Wouldn’t there be a difference in any bio-chemistry between Earth and Mars life?
Not a bio-chemist or even a real scientist, but it seems to me that Mars *is* different from Earth. Shouldn’t we be looking for silicon-based or copper-based or even mango-based life on Mars and not the standard carbon-based stuff?
August 4th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
This is exactly why we need humans to go there. As sophisticated as we can make these robotic labs, there simply is no substitute for an unambiguous on-site human evaluation.
August 4th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Oh come on now! They found Amelia Earhardt and you know it as well as I!
August 4th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
Well, that won’t stop Bush from invading and nuking the place. All for the oil they just found.
August 4th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Well, if we fight the percolates there, then they won’t have to fight them here!
August 4th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
They’re just going to announce that they found the Mars sound stage.
August 4th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
My memory might be faulty, but weren’t perchlorate compounds suggested as a possible cause for the one seemingly positive result from the 1976 Viking soil tests?
August 4th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Didn’t this happen many years ago in a completely different experiment with the first lander on Mars? In that case it was: “The nutrients were completely consumed! (life) But there’s no waste. (chemistry).
August 4th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Yes lets send up 10 more probes that have shorts and that cant detect halfway proper soil from dirt. Lets begin to take Mars more seriously.
August 4th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
I did not say send one exactly like the one there just send more probes.
August 4th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
The Mars Science Laboratory probe launches in September 2009, will get there July-Sep 2010. Check out the wikipedia page for it. This should tell us whether any life is there, we just have to hope it gets there though. It will be hugely frustrating for us to lose another Mars probe at this vital time of discovery. This is the one to get excited about, as Phoenix won’t be able to tell us much about life, only if there ever was the capability, still exciting but not definite answers. Save most of your excitement for the Mars Science Lab. Can anyone confirm if the dates for launch are still next Month?
August 4th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Chip, as I understand it (and feel free to correct me), Dr. Gilbert Levin, one of the designers of Viking’s Labeled Release experiment claims the results of that experiment produced results that could be consistent with life or chemistry. As Viking’s GCMS failed to detect any organics in the Martian Regolith, most interpretations of the LR data favored the chemical explanation. In fact, most have rebutted Levin’s interpretation that it could have been a biotic response at all. Levin has suggested that a test for chirality would settle the matter definitively, as a chemical reaction would produce random “handedness” (is that right?) while a living response would produce a consistent chirality.
I can’t claim any expertise in these fields, and my understanding of Levin’s contentions may be complete flap-doodle… but that’s what I recall.
August 4th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
At any rate he is right that chirality would be strong evidence of life. Chemical processes do produce achiral mixtures (that is, with an even mix of “handedness”). Biochemical reactions, on Earth at least, produce highly chiral mixtures of molecules. There is no guarantee that another form of life would not produce achiral mixtures, but it is hard (if not impossible) to imagine biochemical reactions that are both specific enough to be useful but would somehow not produce chiral molecules. That, of course, assumes that the molecules in question are able to be chiral in the first place. Not all organic molecules have the ability to be chiral, and there is no reason to conclude that all biochemistries must be based on organic molecules that cannot be chiral. So altough the presence of molecular mixtures with a certain chirality would be an almost guaranteed confirmation of life, the absence, although evidence against life, would not be anywhere near as certain. Chirality is not difficult to detect, assuming you can extract intact organic molecules from the surrounding material and isolate enough of them in sufficiently high concentration that the experiment could be run. I suspect that is where the difficulty would lie.
August 4th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
I should add that not all terrestrial biochemical reactions produce chiral molecules for the same reason, that is the molecule in question cannot be chiral.
August 4th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Any chance this is contamination from the landers thrusters?
August 4th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Thank you, Black Cat. That gives me a better understanding of the concepts. Why have we not conducted chirality tests, then?
August 4th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
*** THE FINAL FRONTIER
‘Provocative’ Mars data shows ‘potential for life’
White House alerted by NASA of major announcement soon
Posted: August 02, 2008
7:10 pm Eastern © 2008 WorldNetDaily
Soil-sampling trench dug by Phoenix lander
This week’s confirmation by NASA that the Phoenix lander had confirmed the presence of water ice on Mars was just the tip of the iceberg … http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=71329
*** THE RETURN OF PLANET X – INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE – ROMA 2009 http://www.segnidalcielo.it/PlanetXConference.html
*** NASA AND PLANET X:
1) http://www.australia.to/story/0,25197,23040466-937,00,00.html
2) http://www.australia.to/solarwarden/
*** YOUTUBE:
1) Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14, UFOs on the Moon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82RGdEuZp4I
2) Top Secret UFO NASA Tapes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9runNgtTb0&feature=related
3) UFO confirmed in NASA Control Room:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6Zj_hrB_l8&feature=related
4)Planet Eris – the cause of global warminghttp://youtube.com/watch?v=f5WnuRekG4s
*** VATICAN AND PLANET X http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_secretumomega01.htm
http://www.realufos.net/2008/05/why-is-2005-vatican-ufo-video-threat.html
August 4th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
As I said, isolating sufficient samples and concentrating them to sufficient levels may be difficult. And if they are mixed with abiotic organic molecules, or non-chiral organic molecules, it may be difficult to differentiate between true chirality and noise. There is also the problem that not all organic molecules will have the same chirality (for instance on Earth amino acids and carbohydrates have different chirality), and even if they do not all molecules with the same chirality will react the same to the test. Basically, chiral molecules will cause the angle of plane-polarized light to rotate. That was how they were originally found. But not all molecules with the same chirality will cause rotation in the same direction or by the same amount. Also, the amount of rotation is dependent both on the concentration of the molecules in the sample and the distance the light travels within the sample. So ideally you would want large amounts of the same molecule at high purity in a large volume and a high concentration. That is a difficult task for a person even with a lot of equipment, obviously it is far harder for a tiny robot. There may be more sensitive tests I am not aware of, though, or the sensitivity of the test I am mentioning may be higher than I am making it sound. But it is far from trivial.
August 4th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
I say it found mucous, providing evidence of a ginormous sneeze from the “Face on Mars”. Finally proof Hoagland was right!
August 4th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Hey, the more hype NASA can make about the mission, the more funding. woot!
August 4th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
They found all the BS Hoagland has been feeding us for all these years.
August 4th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
Can I just say that Emily runs one of the best science blogs in this solar system?
August 4th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
The White House needed a briefing to explain where Mars is and that the Phoenix Lander didn’t land in Phoenix. If Nasa finds anything profound, the White House has to figure out how to mess up the operation. After all, we know that government agencies can’t do anything right and the executive can’t have a blatant example of competence ruin a stellar record for this administration.
August 4th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
“Can I just say that Emily runs one of the best science blogs in this solar system?”
I’m glad you qualified it with *this* solar system. The one from Betelgeuse is much better.
August 4th, 2008 at 11:48 pm
NASA had their chance to announce they found life back when they made all those jumped up claims about a big discovery then it turned out to be a bloody supernova. Call me a cynic but
BAH!
August 4th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
Well, Phil, looks like you have your job cut out for you with Hercolubus!
August 5th, 2008 at 1:54 am
Interesting back & forth dialog from IMForeman and Black Cat. Thanks. Yes, the gas chromatograph mass spectrometer was the “completely different” experiment I was thinking of. It also seems that the Mars environment, samples and tests over the years are wonderfully dynamic in shifting and seemingly contradictory results. Truly a fascinating planet.
August 5th, 2008 at 3:41 am
“Can I just say that Emily runs one of the best science blogs in this solar system?”
“I’m glad you qualified it with *this* solar system. The one from Betelgeuse is much better.”
Well, it -is-.
August 5th, 2008 at 4:24 am
I’m for more probes, and manned missions. But, first we need a lunar base.
I know there’s different programs vying for funding, between robot probes and manned missions. I wish there were a way to do both.
About our president. Before my HP Pavilion was stolen, I had soft copy of his 9/12 or 9/13 2001 speech. But, I lost the soft copy, with the computer. Nevertheless, to the best of my memory, all our president has done, is what he said he would do, in that speech. Everybody was all for it, then. Then, as he kept leading, people quit following. Politicians and media called for vision. He has a vision of a free and self-sufficient
Iraq. As far as I can tell, short-sighted and wishy-washy politicians, educators and media have abandoned our president’s leadership and vision.
That’s just my opinion, of course.
August 5th, 2008 at 5:27 am
NASA will be having a press briefing on this at 2:00 p.m. EDT tomorrow (Tuesday),
this is where working night shift shines. when I wake up in the afternoon the news will be out when I groggily dodge children and log onto my computer, coffee cup in hand.
August 5th, 2008 at 5:52 am
“Then, as he kept leading, people quit following.”
Strictly speaking, that means he quit leading those people.
August 5th, 2008 at 7:25 am
@ Pieter Kok
Well, sir, that one won’t twist, quite the way you want it to.
If our president had quit leading, he would have resigned. As it is, he continued upon the course he had set (kept leading), and the quitters in his train fell away. ie, people quit following. You can’t have it both ways.
August 5th, 2008 at 7:58 am
They found perchlorate, a component of solid rocket fuel. Quite handy for the return trip. Pechlorate can also be used to generate oxygen, which is also quite handy.
August 5th, 2008 at 8:08 am
Now, I wonder if they will try to use the argument that since conditions appear to be unfavorable for life existing on Mars, let’s cut funding for future Mars exploration.
I think that would be a mistake as there is still much we can learn from the Red Planet. Unfortunately, with the current political climate, I can see Mars exploration now being on the chopping block.
August 5th, 2008 at 8:10 am
@Don Snow,
One of the signs of a good leader is the ability to attract followers. While this President continued to lead, he failed miserably as a leader.
August 5th, 2008 at 8:14 am
@Don,
Oops, sorry for the double post, but, have you ever seen the bumper sticker that says:
“Lead, Follow or Get Out Of The Way!”
This President should have gotten out of the way long ago. In fact, he should have never been in the way. (Can anyone say, “Florida 2000?”)
Unfortunately, there are more Bushs’ to come, several brothers, and 2 daughters. We can only hope they choose the right thing and stay far away from politics. Unfortunately, I think the allure, and family pressure might say otherwise.
August 5th, 2008 at 9:08 am
@Michael
Cutting funding for Mars would actually be a good thing. Why? Because we have a track record of sending up crap and getting crap back (Pathfinders and Sojourner excluded). I wouldn’t be surprised if the perchlorate is from the landers own thrusters. NASA needs to improve its QC methods because while we can hit a target with “nothing but net” from 300 million miles away, we either contaminate everything when we get there or it burns up in the atmosphere.
August 5th, 2008 at 9:21 am
Rust and bleach- who needs it?! Darned place is too small anyway. I say we go to VENUS and terraform IT- build a giant Venetian (Venusian?) blind to keep out excess light, haul in requisite life-needed chemicals from the outer solar system (water, ammonia, etc.)- maybe even move Mercury to be the moon for Venus. Oh- and we gotta spin that sucker up too. Some will say that this project is too costly, both in energy and time. Time we got. Energy we can get.
August 5th, 2008 at 10:06 am
@Daniel,
I think they’ve ruled out Phoenix’s own thrusters as they used a different compound, hydrazine, which apparently does not contain this perchlorate. I disagree with you about sending crap up. NASA has had some awesome success with the probes that have reached Mars, and we have learned much about it’s climate, geology and geography. The problem has been the mismanagement that has led to some huge failures. Mixing up metric with US measurements, anyone?
I’m not sure if contamination was the problem this time. Even if earth microbes did contaminate a sample, I would think the scientists would be able to distinguish them from any native Martian microbes.
August 5th, 2008 at 10:22 am
@Daniel
Actually, IIRC, the Arizona Daily Star reported that NASA and the University of Arizona (remember this is a joint mission) took the Phoenix’s engine into account already. You also seem to forget Mars Odyssey and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter which are still working fine and making key discoveries, and they have been there since 2001 and 2005 respecetively.
NASA has been talking about reducing the Mars exploration budget before this anyways. Their rationale is that they have gotten poor marks by outside review boards on areas like the outer planets, so after the Mars Science Laboratory they were discussing reducing spending and the rate of missions from the point they are at now to focus on those areas, but there still is the sample return mission just starting up. Besides, this is just one spot examined. Is the perchlorate pervasive? Does it change with latitude? With depth? Still a lot of exploration needed.
August 5th, 2008 at 10:40 am
@ Michael L.
Whoooeee, lookee what I found on my lap top. It now shows blog in a Windows, not Discover, frame.
Anyway, I think if I kept on, we could go ’round and ’round on this one all day long. I’d just rather respect your opinion, and hope you can respect mine, and we agree to disagree. OK?
@Don Snow,
One of the signs of a good leader is the ability to attract followers. While this President continued to lead, he failed miserably as a leader.
August 5th, 2008 at 11:08 am
@Michael & Steve:
I do concede that there have been successes in regard to the pathfinders and the current geological orbiters recently. However it is odd how every time we try to find life there is either some short or the metrics are wrong (I blame quality control). I hope and pray the Mars Science Lab will do much better. After all it will be able to go beyond the landing site and look. If MSL doesn’t find anything…lets call it a day.
August 5th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
“Chirality is not difficult to detect, assuming you can extract intact organic molecules from the surrounding material and isolate enough of them in sufficiently high concentration that the experiment could be run. I suspect that is where the difficulty would lie.”
The actual difficulty lies in trying to convince NASA to fly such an experiment when they appear to be disinterested in it. According to Gilbert Levin (who may not be an unbiased observer) chirality experiments have been proposed numerous times to NASA and they have all been rejected. The following URL is a really good article by Levin which contains a lot of historical background information on the search for life on Mars:
http://mars.spherix.com/GVL%20SPIE%202007–FINAL%208-31-07.pdf
Here is an excerpt:
“This despite the development of a modification that could remove any ambiguity from the response by dosing Martian soil with separate chiral isomers of optically active compounds. Any response showing chiral preference would be a sure sign of on-going metabolism. Recommended and proposed many times, the method has been ignored by NASA and ESA. Instead, the life detection approach was changed to one of “follow the water.” Even this approach, however, is puzzling.
While instruments sent to Mars have detected hydrogen, which is proposed to be part of the water molecule, no experiment has been sent capable of detecting water in liquid form, which is key to NASA’s search for extant life. A summary of the status of the search for life on Mars is that the active, direct search is no further advanced than it was after the Viking LR returned its positive response in 1976.”
According to Levin the search for life on Mars is no further advanced than it was 32 years ago. That’s a pretty strong indictment of NASA’s mismanagement of Mars exploration IMHO.
August 5th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
@Daniel
I think at some point, people are going to demand a definitive answer as to the question of life on Mars.
August 5th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Want the answer?…..send people.
August 6th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
BA:
They just discovered living beings on Mars & their boss looks just like Orson Welles!
August 6th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Um, no. Two test with MECA gives (at the time unknown amounts of) perchlorates, one TEGA sample is consistent with a few common perchlorates (detected oxygen but wasn’t looking for chloride) and one TEGA sample is negative.
And perchlorates are apparently naturally occurring compounds on Earth, occurs with chlorides or soils by lightning, uv and ozone.
They are AFAIU no more oxidizing than oxygen and doesn’t usually harm organics in reasonable amounts; some bacterias seems to use them for energy in their metabolism. In fact as they are very soluble they are found in dry environments (like the Atacama desert) or enriched in animals and plants.
But they interfere with iodine uptake so they are both poisonous and used as medicines.
Both Viking landers did a suit of different experiments. AFAIU the alkalinity of soil discovered by Phoenix can explain these results.
OTOH IIRC some scientists hypothesized at the time that electrostatic action among dusts stirred by Mars thermal winds could generate oxidants (mainly peroxides then), so that hypothesis could come in handy to explain the perchlorates now. But the unblocked uv light combined with the dryness of Mars would be enough, I guess.
August 6th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Um, no, that isn’t correct. Biological systems are using chemical reactions, and can produce handedness. Chiral (handed) products results from chiral ingredients, so racemic (both handedness in equal amounts) products results from racemic ingredients.
Also, chiral products will degrade towards racemic, as for example amino acids in proteins “flops” to the other chemical configuration over time.
But most important, it isn’t an unambiguous telltale for life. AFAIU the last decade scientists in medicine, and in lesser degree cell biology, have discovered that cells have a lot of enzymes that converts compounds to and from different chirality. Bacterias but also humans regularly produces compounds of the “wrong” chirality when it is needed, or to detoxify from the wrong chirality for the purpose. And those enzymes are supposedly very old.
Over at Panda’s Thumb you can search and find Gary Hurd’s link collection to abiogenesis material, where the new idea is that life started out racemic, or nearly so, as the prebiotic chemistry probably was. Over time, billions of years perhaps, some life evolved to use chiral pathways when it was advantageous. But as noted this use is modified constantly.
So it is possible that chirality can be used to detect life, perhaps even probable, but not certain. Especially when we discuss non-diversified (early life and/or simple ecologies) life.
August 6th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
But these are the pretty much the same arguments that you produced on an earlier thread. These experiments are, too broadly, assuming an oxidative (better, redox) reaction as I mentioned earlier. (And you misunderstood apparently.) Which we now know they will see due to the alkaline soil. The only addition Levin proposes is chirality, and as I discussed this isn’t certain to be unambiguous either.
In fact, Phoenix is looking for habitability and understanding of the water cycle, but it is also equipped for looking at signs of bioactivity by means of isotope balances. But AFAIU unfortunately some geological activities mimics life here as well, so again no unambiguous results can be promised.
Btw, I think Levin is mischaracterizing the later US and EU rover programs. They will go beyond habitability and look for biochemistry.
August 7th, 2008 at 10:11 am
“But these are the pretty much the same arguments that you produced on an earlier thread.”
Did you read the URL I provided? Those are Levin’s arguments, not mine.
“Btw, I think Levin is mischaracterizing the later US and EU rover programs. They will go beyond habitability and look for biochemistry.”
Even if you are correct this will be more than 30 years after the original Viking search for biochemistry. What has taken NASA so long to resume the search for life on Mars?
August 7th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Yes, I read it; I was referring to when you argued for radio-labeling carbon in search for redox reactions, more specifically photosynthesis, just as Levin does.
I’m not an expert here, but it seems to me there was a long hiatus in exploring Mars for political reasons. I assume most would blame the negative results from the expensive Viking landers, which we know now was due to the overoptimistic design of the experiments. Combine that with the fact that 50 % of the probes sent to Mars have failed, and it would explain why there was no research on Mars at all during a long period.
August 28th, 2008 at 8:04 am
Since 1999 I have been studying astronomy leading to astrology. The study has been mostly focused on UFO. Most of my works are scientific with about 15% metaphysics 5% telepathy. Mars Venus Jupiter were habited about a million years ago. The habitants were true worshippers of God the creator. The planets were destroyed to ruins to no life existence by an evil alien race TOII in extra terrestrial wars. TOII used nuclear based weapons to destroy the planets. Planet Earth was saved because of its dual belief in heaven and Lucifer belief. Planet Earth is among few planets in universe of universes of dual belief and this focuses to events of the millenium. Good alien race TATII were taken prisoners 200 000 years ago to planet Earth. In 2178 an evil race TITAUS will destroy planet Earth having been defeated in many battles. Asked NASA to verify possible evidence of past life on Mars. Mankind on planet Earth are to encounter aliens soon. Events to take place on planet Earth will be of divine intervention and reflect predictions of the millenium. Mankind are to use alien science to survive in this millenium. Events will begin to unfold when mankind charge to alien science. I have the above in written texts.