NASA’s Phoenix Mars lander is designed to search for organic compounds on the Red Planet — but as of this writing, no such compounds have been found. In fact, new experiments by NASA scientists suggest that that’s because the lander has been incinerating the compounds by mistake.
The scientists took known organic compounds from Earth and replicated the heating procedure that their robots use to analyze the soil samples. The result? No signs of life, even though the original samples were teeming with it. The scientists are now designing a method of analysis that relies on lower temperatures, so that future landers won’t burn up the very life-forms they’re designed to locate.
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