Mars. Roman god of war. The Red Planet. From the perennial Mars hoax to Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, no other body in our solar system has so captured the human imagination. Throughout history mankind has gazed into the night sky wondering what civilizations awaited those who landed on the Red Planet's surface. The novels of Burroughs and others tout the planet's allure and films have warned humanity of its dangers.
In 1965, the Mariner 4 spacecraft sent the first images of another planet to waiting scientists on Earth. Since that image, the Red Planet has revealed a world strangely familiar, yet challenging. Each time scientists feel close to understanding Mars, new discoveries send them back to the drawing board to revise existing theories.
In the 35 years since NASA launched Viking 1 on Aug. 20, 1975, the ambitious mission only whetted the scientific world and public's enthusiasm for future space exploration.
In the ensuing years, NASA has launched the Phoenix Mars Lander, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Exploration Rovers, among others. Perhaps the most successful of these missions is Mars Exploration Rovers. Launched in June and July 2003, respectively, Spirit and Opportunity landed on Mars each for a 90-day mission that continues after more than 6 years.
For centuries, scientists wondered if Mars might be covered with vegetation - or even inhabited by intelligent beings. Today, we know Mars to be quite different. It is a frozen desert world with now silent volcanoes and deep canyons. Polar ice caps expand and contract with the Martian seasons.
While the story began years earlier, it culminated in August and September 1975 with the launch of two large, nearly identical spacecraft from Cape Canaveral, Fl. Vikings 1 and 2, named for the fearless Nordic explorers of Earth, finally give humans a close-up look at this alien world.
Viking 1 and 2, each consisting of an orbiter and a lander, became the first space probes to obtain high resolution images of the Martian surface; characterize the structure and composition of the atmosphere and surface; and conduct on-the-spot biological tests for life on another planet.
Among the discoveries about Mars over the years, one stands out above all others: the possible presence of liquid water, either in its ancient past or preserved in the subsurface today.
Water is key because almost everywhere water is found on Earth, so is life. If Mars once had liquid water, or still does today, it's compelling to ask whether any microscopic life forms could have developed on its surface.
Viking 1 arrived at Mars on June 19, 1976. On July 20, 1976, the Viking 1 lander separated from the orbiter and touched down at Chryse Planitia. Viking 2 was launched Sept. 9, 1975, and entered Mars orbit Aug. 7, 1976. The Viking 2 lander touched down at Utopia Planitia on Sept. 3, 1976.
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http://www.stkate.edu/physics/Astrobiology/viking1.jpg
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А потом в течении 20 лет их фотографии были единственными изображениями Марсса.
Да вообще дело скандальное. Уж коль сам Смит вслух это сказал.
Ладно бы только сам Левин - он всё время был уверен, что результаты его викинговских экспериментов неправильно толкуют.
...Rafael Navarro-Gonzalez and a geophysical team from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) suggest that data from Viking may have been misinterpreted, and that carbon-rich organic molecules may be present on Mars after all. The renewed interest in the Viking data stems from the discovery of perchlorate by the Phoenix Mars Lander in 2008...researchers visited...Atacama Desert to conduct experiments on soils found in an environment similar to the one on Mars...Atacama is the driest place on Earth and includes zones that are thought to have had no rain for 400 years....Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, principal investigator on the Phoenix mission, says the misinterpretation of the Viking results may have effectively put researchers on a different track for the past 30 years. As a result of the new evidence, he adds, when NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission reaches the planet in 2012, "I predict we will fully measure organics on Mars at the 10 [parts per million] level."
Aviation Week & Space Technology; 9/13/2010, Vol. 172 Issue 34, p20-20, 1p
Viking Found Organics on Mars, Experiment Confirms (http://news.discovery.com/space/viking-mars-organics-experiment.html)
* A reanalysis of Mars Viking experiments shows the probes did find organics.
* The result was not initially understood due to the strong oxidation effects of a salt in the Mars soil known as perchlorate.
* A follow-up study on perchlorate-enhanced soil similar to what's found on Mars revealed fingerprints of combusted organics.
Reanalysis of the Viking results suggests perchlorate and organics at midlatitudes on Mars (http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2010/2010JE003599.shtml)
The most comprehensive search for organics in the Martian soil was performed by the Viking Landers. Martian soil was subjected to a thermal volatilization process to vaporize and break organic molecules, and the resultant gases and volatiles were analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Only water at 0.1–1.0 wt% was detected, with traces of chloromethane at 15 ppb, at Viking landing site 1, and water at 0.05–1.0 wt% and carbon dioxide at 50–700 ppm, with traces of dichloromethane at 0.04–40 ppb, at Viking landing site 2. These chlorohydrocarbons were considered to be terrestrial contaminants, although they had not been detected at those levels in the blank runs. Recently, perchlorate was discovered in the Martian Arctic soil by the Phoenix Lander. Here we show that when Mars-like soils from the Atacama Desert containing 32 ± 6 ppm of organic carbon are mixed with 1 wt% magnesium perchlorate and heated, nearly all the organics present are decomposed to water and carbon dioxide, but a small amount is chlorinated, forming 1.6 ppm of chloromethane and 0.02 ppm of dichloromethane at 500°C. A chemical kinetics model was developed to predict the degree of oxidation and chlorination of organics in the Viking oven. Reinterpretation of the Viking results therefore suggests d0.1% perchlorate and 1.5–6.5 ppm organic carbon at landing site 1 and d0.1% perchlorate and 0.7–2.6 ppm organic carbon at landing site 2. The detection of organics on Mars is important to assess locations for future experiments to detect life itself.
Citation: Navarro-Gonz