Context
NASA’s Viking Mission new hypothesis challenges 50-year old findings.
About Viking Mission to Mars:
- Viking 1 Mission (1976): NASA’s Viking 1 lander sent two spacecraft to Mars with the goal of detecting microbial life by analyzing soil samples.
- Search Methodology: The experiment involved adding water and nutrients to Martian soil, assuming Martian life, if present, would need liquid water to survive—similar to Earth’s organisms.
- Initial Findings: Early analysis hinted at the possibility of microbial life, but these results were later dismissed as false positives after further study.
- Schulze-Makuch’s Hypothesis:
- Hypothesis: Astronomer Dirk Schulze-Makuch suggests that Viking’s approach may have inadvertently harmed Martian microbes instead of revealing them.
- The Flaw: Schulze-Makuch theorizes that Martian microorganisms might survive in extremely dry conditions, like microbes in Earth’s Atacama Desert, using hygroscopic salts to extract moisture from the atmosphere.
- Overwhelming Microbes: The addition of liquid water could have overwhelmed and killed potential Martian microbes instead of nurturing them.
Important Missions to MARS
- Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) or Mangalyaan – ISRO
- Perseverance – NASA
- Tianwen-1 and Zhurong – China
- ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter – Collaboration between the European Space Agency and the Russian space agency Roscosmos
- Hope – UAE
- MAVEN – NASA
- Curiosity – NASA
About Mars:
- Nickname: Known as the Red Planet due to its reddish appearance caused by the oxidation (rusting) of iron in rocks and dust.
- Position: The 4th planet from the Sun.
- Size: The 2nd smallest planet in the Solar System, about half the size of Earth.
- Rotation: Completes a rotation every 24.6 hours, similar to Earth’s 23.9 hours.
- Axis Tilt: The axis of rotation is tilted at 25 degrees, close to Earth’s tilt of 23.4 degrees.
- Seasons: Mars has distinct seasons similar to Earth, but they last longer due to its longer orbit.
- Martian Days: Days on Mars are called sols, which is short for solar day.
- Volcanoes: Home to Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in the Solar System.
- Moons: Mars has 2 small moons, Phobos and Deimos.
Source: TOI
Previous Year Question
The experiment will employ a trio of spacecraft flying in formation in the shape of an equilateral triangle that has sides one million kilometers long, with lasers shining between the craft.” The experiment in question refers to
[UPSC Civil Services Exam – 2020 Prelims]
(a) Voyager-2
(b) New Horizons
(c) LISA Pathfinder
(d) Evolved LISA
Answer: (d)