Mars robots may have destroyed evidence of life.

HAVE Mars landers been destroying signs of life? Instead of identifying chemicals that could point to life, NASA's robot explorers may have been toasting them by mistake. ??

Some have suggested that organics were cleansed from the surface by naturally occurring, highly reactive chemicals such as hydrogen peroxide. Then last year, NASA's Phoenix lander, which also failed to detect organics on Mars, stumbled on something in the Martian soil that may have, in effect, been hiding the organics: a class of chemicals called perchlorates.

At low temperatures, perchlorates are relatively harmless. But when heated to hundreds of degrees Celsius they release a lot of oxygen, which tends to cause any nearby combustible material to burn. For that very reason, perchlorates are used in rocket propulsion.

The Phoenix and Viking landers looked for organic molecules by heating soil samples to similarly high temperatures to evaporate them and analyse them in gas form. When Douglas Ming of NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and colleagues tried heating organics and perchlorates like this on Earth, the resulting combustion left no trace of organics behind. Ming's team presented their results at the recent Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston.

'' Mystery of the missing salt
Organic chemicals are not the only substance that we may have missed on the Red Planet (see above). We should have seen carbonate salts littering the surface.

Weathering breaks down basalt, the dominant rock in the planet's crust, into a clay plus positive ions. These ions should react with carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere to form carbonate salts, explains Ralph Milliken at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Orbiters have spotted clay on Mars but few carbonates or other salts. We shouldn't assume that they aren't there, however, Milliken says. ''

One can speculaate if these people know what they are doing at all sometimes..
They seem to do alot of mistakes and gets surprised at how things actually works.

Read the full post here..
New Scientist

perhaps it is true. Though i dont think they will ever admit it. I dont know what to think though when it comes to mars. for all we know theres a huge civilization living in skyscrapers built with red rock so we dont even notice it. you and i will never reach there nor will someone reach their on our behalf. nasa is for themselves not the public. liars

reply to post by Myendica


The probe aint even on Mars, its on some ranch out in the desert pretending to be on Mars, after all they didn't go to the moon did they?
And even if they DID go to Mars and an alien was to pop up to the camera and wave , NASA wouldn't tell you the truth.
So who knows what esle their hiding from the public.

For all I know these rovers can be driving around in the Nevada Desert, I cant tell the diffrence . .
Maby behind these rovers there are huge buildings and they take pictures of the un populated area in the out skirts...

[edit on 27-5-2009 by ChemBreather]

Weird!

Apparently mars is warming up though! (probably by solar flares)

Already being discussed:
www.abovetopsecret.com...