The NASA spacecraft Odyssey's measurements of the planet Mars' huge cache of subsurface ice is yet another piece of data shoring up a controversial claim based on information found by the dual Viking landers in the 1970s. Not only is water ice an elixir for Martian life, it will help support human explorers of the future.
Touching down in 1976, two Viking landers each carried an array of instruments in a bold search for life. One of those instruments -- the Labeled Release experiment -- yielded intriguing information suggestive of microorganisms buried in the Martian soil.
Gilbert Levin, now CEO of Spherix Incorporated in Beltsville, Maryland, is long-time advocate that his Viking experiment did find Mars life. Levin has also long supported a view that liquid water exists on the surface of Mars.
The Viking Mission Labeled Release (LR) life detection experiment was created to look for metabolism due to the presence of microbial organisms in the soil. After both landers gulped in Mars surface samples, various devices, including the LR, ran tests on the soil.
To this day, Levin argues that his experiment detected microbial metabolism. Nonetheless, the consensus of scientists interpreting the Viking results countered by saying that the surprising activity the LR detected in the surface material should be attributed to chemistry, not biology.
Since 1976, of all the many hypotheses offered over the years to explain the LR Mars results Levin remains convinced that the only possibility fitting all the relevant data is that microbial life exists in the top layer of the Martian surface.
Blinders removed
"I am surprised that no mention was made of putting the Pathfinder data and the Odyssey data together," Levin told SPACE.com. "Pathfinder found the surface temperature of Mars to exceed freezing, and Odyssey reports near-surface ice over wide regionsincluding the Pathfinder landing area, and the Viking landing areas," he said.
NASA's Mars Pathfinder landed on the red planet in July 1997. Deployed onto the desolate surface was the mini-rover, Sojourner.
"Any physicist would tell you that, given water ice near the surface, a surface temperature above freezing, and a total atmospheric pressure above the triple point, liquid water must exist in the soil above the ice. Maybe only as moisture for part of the day, but the liquid water is enough to sustain the microorganisms the Viking Labeled Release experiment found," Levin said.
The Odyssey findings clearly support, in Levin's view, that Viking provided data establishing the presence of liquid water on Mars under Martian surface conditions.
"The King has clothes! And as their blinders are gradually removed, even the most reticent scientists will suddenly discover that they knew all along that there is life on Mars," Levin told SPACE.com.
Russian instrument
Odyssey's Gamma Ray Spectrometer (GRS) is a suite of three instruments: the Gamma Subsystem, built by the University of Arizona under the direction of William Boynton. The Neutron Spectrometer was built by Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and the Russian-made High Energy Neutron Detector (HEND), was provided by the Russian Aviation and Space Agency in Moscow.
Russian scientist, Igor Mitrofanov, leads the HEND team.
Mitrofanov and his team note in descriptions of their HEND device that the trio of GRS experiments can yield data essential to foster the future of Mars exploration. Finding regions of water ice is important to both selecting landing sites and eventual human exploration of Mars.
Firstly, Mitrofanov and his science team believe identifying water ice regions will allow searches for traces of life, or past biology on Mars. Secondly, samples of ice or water collected at these regions could be returned to Earth for careful study in laboratories. Lastly, these regions are key to providing needed resources that spur human exploration and eventual colonization of the red planet.
Boom time
The new Mars findings are even more striking in that the cluster of devices detecting the strong signals have yet to be fully deployed.
In an earlier SPACE.com interview with Boynton, the deployment of the boom-mounted Gamma-Ray Spectrometer (GRS) has been moved to early June. Odyssey's spacecraft engineers are very cautious regarding full extension of the boom. For instance, if the long truss only partly deployed on June 4, the Mars spacecraft might have a center of gravity problem, creating a concern as to accurate pointing of Odyssey's instruments.
"We are going through tests and planning to make sure every "I" is dotted and "t" is crossed just right," Boynton said. The process of preparing for boom deployment is a very complicated process, he said.
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