Don't send bugs to Mars. Experiment Confirms Viking Actually Did Find Organic ... More than three decades after scientists concluded that NASA's Viking missions to Mars had found inconclusive evidence for the existence of organic compounds on Mars, a new study says not only are there organics on Mars, but Viking found them back in the late 1970s and scientists completely missed them.
The new study of the Viking program's finding was initiated after the August 2008 discovery of perchlorates in Martian soil by the Phoenix lander. Perchlorates are salts whose powerful oxygen-busting capacity that tends to combust organics. Nasa's Phoenix Mars lander 'broken by ice' 24 May 2010Last updated at 21:38 A much diminished outline is apparent in the latest images New images appear to confirm that Nasa's Phoenix lander broke apart during Mars' winter.
The static spacecraft, which was sent to study the planet's "high Arctic", lost contact with Earth in late 2008. Phoenix would have been covered by carbon dioxide ice, and Nasa always said it was likely the mission would be destroyed in such harsh conditions. Buried Mars Glaciers May Be Remnants of Past Ice Age. November 20, 2008 Low, wide glaciers half a mile thick adorn the middle latitudes of Mars, say scientists who used radar probes to peer into debris-covered formations.
The rounded slopes of material skirting steep ridges have cropped up in numerous satellite images over the years, generating controversy over whether they are mostly made of rock or ice. Using NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, John Holt of the University of Texas at Austin and colleagues found that the landforms appear to be water ice covered by rocky rubble.
The ice exists at much lower latitudes than any other known deposits on the Martian surface, and some experts say the trapped water has the potential to support humans in future missions to Mars.