GILBERT LEVIN aims to appropriate the Mars Science Laboratory for his own ends. 鈥淪ince NASA has disdained any interest in MSL looking for life, I鈥檓 taking over,鈥� he says. 鈥淚 claim it.鈥�
He is only half joking. If MSL鈥檚 rover Curiosity finds carbon-based molecules in the Martian soil, Levin 鈥� who led the 鈥渓abelled release鈥� experiment on NASA鈥檚 1976 Viking mission 鈥� will demand that his refuted discovery of life on Mars is reinstated.
Levin, a former sanitary engineer, will make this call next week at the annual . He wants an independent reanalysis of the data.
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The experiment mixed Martian soil with a nutrient containing radioactive carbon. The idea was simple: if bacteria were present in the soil, and metabolised the nutrient, they would emit some of the digested molecules as carbon dioxide. The experiment did indeed find that carbon dioxide was released from the soil, and that it contained radioactive carbon atoms.
Levin鈥檚 team went out and bought champagne. He even took a congratulatory phone call from Carl Sagan. However, the party was ruined by a sister experiment. Viking鈥檚 Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer (GCMS) was looking for carbon-based molecules and found none. NASA chiefs said that life couldn鈥檛 exist without these organic molecules, and declared Levin鈥檚 result moot. 鈥淣ASA powers that be concluded that the lack of organics trumped the positive labelled release experiment,鈥� says , a geophysical scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington DC.
Since then, some of the GCMS team have admitted that their experiment was even in terrestrial soils known to contain microbes.
That is why Levin wants a reanalysis of his original data if Curiosity finds organic molecules. 鈥淚鈥檓 very confident that MSL will find the organics and possibly that the cameras will even see something,鈥� he says. Taken with his 36-year-old results, that would constitute a discovery of life on Mars, Levin says.
It鈥檚 not a crank claim, says Hazen. 鈥淟evin鈥檚 experiment showed a surprising and as yet not well explained effect that, at least prior to the Viking mission, the experts said would indicate microbial metabolism. If you can鈥檛 explain that through an obvious inorganic process, then it follows that microbial life is a real possibility.鈥�
New 杏吧原创 tried to reach NASA for comment on Levin鈥檚 claim, but without success.
