Word: martian
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...dream of extraterrestrial life was stimulated earlier this summer by preliminary interpretations of data sent back from Mars by the twin Mariner probes. Hurriedly examining the readings from his infrared spectrometer on board Mariner 7, Chemist George C. Pimental had dramatically announced that the Martian atmosphere probably contained traces of ammonia and methane, two gases produced on earth by bacterial decay. The implication was clear: there might well be micro-organisms on Mars...
Last week, after further study of the Mariner data, Pimental reported that his ephemeral clue to the existence of Martian life had proved to be false. What he had read as the characteristic "signatures" of methane and ammonia in spectrographic information gathered near the Martian south pole, he admitted, were actually produced by a thick layer of frozen carbon dioxide, otherwise called diy ice. How did the embarrassing error occur? Only when he checked out the experiment in his laboratory, Pimental explained, did he learn that a thick layer of dry ice could produce spectral characteristics similar to those...
...Clouds. Other scientists also had some second thoughts about their Mars findings. Originally, the temperature of the southern polar cap was reported as -180°F., or roughly the frost point of carbon dioxide under Martian atmospheric pressure. Now, the scientists say that the temperature is probably about four degrees lower and the atmospheric pressure several millibars higher than first estimated. That would mean that the pole is not solid carbon dioxide, as scientists once speculated. Instead, it is possibly composed of a mixture of carbon dioxide and ordinary ice, and perhaps obscured by a cloud of dry-ice particles...
...vehicles that flew past Mars, detected two gases-ammonia and methane-that could indicate the presence of primitive life. Both are produced on earth by biological decay. George C. Pimentel, a University of California chemist, said that he was unable to determine the amount of ammonia in the Martian atmosphere, but he estimated the concentration of methane as "no more than a few parts per million." In the earth's atmosphere, the amount is about 1.5 p.p.m.-and added rather jovially that among the terrestrial sources of methane are marsh gas and bovine flatulence, both of which result from...
Puzzling Erosion. In all, Manner 7 radioed back 126 pictures, compared with 74 by Mariner 6, before speeding behind Mars en route to an orbit around the sun. The pictures have all but ended the old controversy about the so-called Martian canals. The "canals" are not distinct linear features laid out by intelligent beings, as some scientists once believed, but apparently rough, uneven splotches that lose their geometric-looking form on closer examination. Far from being the outpost of an advanced civilization, Mars more and more seems to be something of a primordial version of the earth...