NASA's Viking Mission Unintentionally Destroyed Mars' Life: Says Scientist
Schulze-Makuch, an astrobiologist at Technische Universität Berlin, proposed a new hypothesis on the Viking Mission and said that landers may have accidentally destroyed life on Mars.
NASA's Viking Mission Unintentionally Destroyed Mars' Life
Recently, almost 5 decades later, Dirk Schulze-Makuch, an astrobiologist at Technische Universität Berlin, proposed a new hypothesis that the Viking Mission Landers have accidentally destroyed life on Mars.
Launched in 1975, the Viking mission started to search for Martian life. However, according to a recent hypothesis, it is anticipated that the methods used by Viking landers, especially their approach to water, may have destroyed Martian life.
New approach to find life
For decades, NASA has used the "follow the water" method to look for extraterrestrial life. But, now, Dirk argues that instead of focusing primarily on liquid water, researchers should consider hygroscopic salts as a potential habitat for life. By prioritising the hunt for these moisture-absorbing molecules, future Mars missions may be better suited to find microbial life that has adapted to thrive in Mars' harsh environment.
