{"id":290340,"date":"2025-11-17T12:14:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T12:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/290340\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T12:14:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T12:14:08","slug":"was-nasas-no-life-on-mars-conclusion-in-the-70s-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/290340\/","title":{"rendered":"Was NASA\u2019s \u2018no life on Mars\u2019 conclusion in the 70s wrong?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"LifeView larger<\/a>. | NASA\u2019s Viking 1<\/a> lander took this photo of surrounding rocks and sand dunes on May 26, 1977. The lander\u2019s sampling arm is in the foreground, and the scoop marks in the sand are where it took samples for analysis. Both Viking 1 and 2 looked for evidence of microscopic life on Mars, but the results were inconclusive. Image via NASA\/ Wikimedia Commons<\/a>\/ Roel van der Hoorn (Public Domain).<\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s twin landers, Viking 1 and 2, searched for microbial life on Mars in the late 1970s. The results were tentatively positive but inconclusive.
\nNASA later declared \u2018no life on Mars\u2019 when the landers failed to find organic molecules. They actually did find two types of organics, but scientists thought they were contaminants from the landers themselves.
\nSimilar organics have since been found on Mars, however, by subsequent rover missions. So if the organics were there, does that mean Viking found life after all?<\/p>\n

Millions come to EarthSky for night sky news and trusted science.
Your donation keeps us free and accessible for all.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Viking search for life on Mars<\/p>\n

Did a big mistake back in the late 1970s lead to scientists concluding that there was no microbial life on Mars? That\u2019s what astrobiologist Dirk Schulze-Makuch<\/a> at the Technical University Berlin in Germany says<\/a> might have happened in a new article for Big Think. After NASA\u2019s Viking landers touched down on Mars in 1976, they conducted lab experiments to search for evidence of active microbes in the Martian sands. While initial results were positive, scientists later concluded there was no life because the landers didn\u2019t find any organic molecules in the soil. Or did they \u2026 ?<\/p>\n

As Schulze-Makuch notes, they actually did find two kinds of organics. But at the time, they were thought to be contaminants from the landers themselves. But now rovers have also found similar organics, suggesting they are native to Mars after all. Could that mean Viking actually did find life after all?<\/p>\n

Schulze-Makuch, along with Steve Benner<\/a> at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution and three other colleagues, sent an eLetter to the journal Science The letter is in response to a paper<\/a> initially published on October 1, 1976.<\/p>\n

A team of scientists at FfAME (Steve Benner, Jan Spacek, Clay Abraham) joined European astrobiologist Dirk Schulze-Makuch to publish this eLetter in Science that reexamines, at last, a misinterpretation published in\u00a0Science\u00a0by Klaus Biemann and his coworkers. Links below!<\/p>\n

\u2014 Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution (@ffame.org)<\/a> 2025-10-22T16:40:55.868Z<\/a><\/p>\n

The eLetter is appended to the bottom of the Biemann et al. abstract at the link:www.science.org\/doi\/10.1126\/\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2014 Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution (@ffame.org)<\/a> 2025-10-22T16:40:55.869Z<\/a><\/p>\n

Positive, but inconclusive results<\/p>\n

The two landers \u2013 Viking 1 and Viking 2 \u2013 were a unique mission. They were designed specifically to look for signs of microbial life in the sandy Martian soil. The instruments included the Labeled Release Experiment<\/a> to test for metabolic processes; the Pyrolytic Release Experiment<\/a> to test for organic synthesis reactions and the Gas Exchange Experiment<\/a> to measure exchange of gases that might be biological in origin.<\/p>\n

Some of the results were positive, but others were harder to figure out. As Schulze-Makuch wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Even though the very first test at Viking 1\u2019s Chryse landing site had been positive for organic synthesis (with a 99.7% certainty compared to the control sample), follow-on tests provided no clear results. The gas exchange experiment was just as puzzling: It showed the release of several gases, including oxygen, but scientists today still don\u2019t agree on an explanation.<\/p>\n

\"BlackView larger<\/a>. | The Viking control room at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on July 19, 1976, the day before Viking 1<\/a> landed on Mars. Image via John Malmin\/ Los Angeles Times\/ Wikimedia Commons<\/a> (CC BY 4.0).
\nNo organics?<\/p>\n

Even though some tests were positive, there was one big problem. Klaus Biemann, a principal investigator for the Viking mission, reported that the landers had not found any organics. Organic molecules are the building blocks of life, so without them, there can\u2019t be any life. This led to NASA declaring there was no life on Mars, at least not where the two landers landed. In fact, Gerald Soffen<\/a>, Viking\u2019s project scientist, confidently declared:<\/p>\n

No organics, no life on Mars.<\/p>\n

\"ManDirk Schulze-Makuch<\/a> at Technical University Berlin in Germany wrote the new Big Think update regarding search for life on Mars by the Viking landers in the 1970s. Image via Big Think<\/a>.
\nOrganics on Mars after all<\/p>\n

But that wasn\u2019t quite the final word. Viking did, in fact, find two kinds of organics, methyl chloride (aka chloromethane<\/a>) and methylene dichloride (aka dichloromethane<\/a>), which are chlorinated compounds. They were at low levels, but they were there. The mission team at the time, however, thought that they were probably contaminants from the landers themselves. Was that a wrong assumption?<\/p>\n

Later, NASA\u2019s rovers Curiosity<\/a> and Perseverance<\/a>, both still active today, also found similar organic molecules. In addition to a multitude of other organic molecules that both rovers have also discovered, some surprisingly complex. Which, of course, raises a big question. Were those organics detected by Viking indigenous to Mars after all? And if so, how did that affect the \u201cno life\u201d conclusion?<\/p>\n

Although puzzling in some ways, the results from the Viking experiments were largely consistent with what scientists expected to see if indeed there were living microbes. But the \u201clack\u201d of organics forced a different conclusion.<\/p>\n

Schulze-Makuch argues that scientists at the time were too focused on non-life explanations. He wrote:<\/p>\n

Scientists of the time were too focused on abiotic \u2013 that is, non-biological \u2013 answers for the puzzling Viking results, even those that made little sense. Instead, they should have kept their minds open to biological explanations as well.<\/p>\n

\"BrownishView larger<\/a>. | NASA\u2019s Viking 2<\/a> lander captured this view of water frost in Utopia Planitia on May 18, 1979. Image via NASA\/ JPL\/ Ted Stryk\/ The Planetary Society<\/a>. Used with permission.
\nWhere do we go from here?<\/p>\n

Based on the Viking data alone, we unfortunately still can\u2019t say for sure whether the landers did find life on Mars or not. Indeed, the results continue to be a subject of much debate. The only way to answer this exciting but controversial question is to go back to Mars with a new mission specifically designed to look for extant life. No mission since Viking has done that. Subsequent mission instead focused on finding evidence of water and habitable environments in the distant past.<\/p>\n

That includes the current rovers Curiosity and Perseverance. Both have found tantalizing clues, but not proof yet of ancient microbial life. As Schulze-Makuch notes:<\/p>\n

The first step on that journey is to correct an old mistake that shaped the course of Mars exploration for 50 years. The second step is to launch a new robotic mission dedicated explicitly to the search for life. Such a mission would be a worthy successor to Viking, using 21st-century technology and a more realistic, up-to-date scientific understanding of planet Mars.<\/p>\n

Bottom line: In the late 1970s, NASA declared \u2018no life on Mars\u2019 when the Viking landers failed to find organic molecules (but they did). So was that conclusion a mistake?<\/p>\n

Source: Search for Organic and Volatile Inorganic Compounds in Two Surface Samples from the Chryse Planitia Region of Mars<\/a><\/p>\n

Via Big Think<\/a><\/p>\n

Read more: Did we find life on Mars \u2026 and then wipe it out?<\/a><\/p>\n

Read more: Did Viking 1 land on debris from an ancient megatsunami?<\/a><\/p>\n

Paul Scott Anderson
\n View Articles<\/a><\/p>\n

About the Author:<\/p>\n

Paul Scott Anderson has had a passion for space exploration that began when he was a child when he watched Carl Sagan\u2019s Cosmos. He studied English, writing, art and computer\/publication design in high school and college. He later started his blog The Meridiani Journal in 2005, which was later renamed Planetaria. He also later started the blog Fermi Paradoxica, about the search for life elsewhere in the universe.
\n
\nWhile interested in all aspects of space exploration, his primary passion is planetary science and SETI. In 2011, he started writing about space on a freelance basis with Universe Today. He has also written for SpaceFlight Insider and AmericaSpace and has also been published in The Mars Quarterly. He also did some supplementary writing for the iOS app Exoplanet.
\n
\nHe has been writing for EarthSky since 2018, and also assists with proofing and social media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"View larger. | NASA\u2019s Viking 1 lander took this photo of surrounding rocks and sand dunes on May…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290341,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[96109,64,63,89545,131,128,285,89540],"class_list":{"0":"post-290340","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-astrobiology","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-life-on-mars","12":"tag-nasa","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-space","15":"tag-viking-landers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}