Over the past few decades, searching for signs of life on Mars has been one of NASA’s biggest efforts, and this effort will lead to the launch of the “Mars Sample Return Mission,” allowing us to delve deeper into Mars samples. But one theory suggests that we discovered life on Mars 50 years ago, but NASA destroyed it.
To fully understand the theory, we need to go back to the mid-1970s, when NASA sent two Viking vehicles to the Red Planet. These two instruments were quite successful at the time, even performing the first and only life-detection experiment ever conducted on another planet.
At that time, the results of these tests could have been clearer. A portion of the test initially showed positive results. However, the gas exchange experiment did not show any positive results. Also, a device on Viking landers designed to detect organic compounds found nothing but traces of chlorinated organics.
Although exciting, scientists of the time assumed that chlorinated organic matter must be a contamination from Earth, since there were no organic substances. In later experiments, water was added to the soil, which undoubtedly killed off any remaining traces. This is why some believe NASA killed our first evidence of life on Mars.
We now know for certain that native organic compounds exist on Mars, meaning that trace amounts found in the 1970s were probably not contamination from Earth. Of course, there’s no way to prove they came from Mars. But when we take a look at a full picture of everything we’ve learned about the Red Planet over the past 50 years, it certainly seems like it could be.
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