Word: martianize
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...electrifying announcement. At a hastily called press conference at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif, last weekend, Viking Scientist Harold Klein reported that the newly begun biology experiments aboard the Mars lander had already shown a strange process-perhaps life-going on in the Martian soil. Said Klein: "We have at least preliminary evidence of a very active surface material. It looks at first indication very much like biological activity...
...evidence that excited Viking scientists came from two of the three biological tests that had begun only three days earlier. One of the Viking experiments, designed to detect respiration, showed that 15 times as much oxygen as the scientists expected had come from the Martian soil sample. The other, which uses radioactive tracers to look for signs of metabolic activity, showed what Klein called "a very strong, positive response." Said a Viking spokesman: "If there is life on Mars, this is what it should be doing...
Three days later, shortly after Martian sunrise, Viking reached out with its arm, scooped up a sample of Martian soil and dumped it into the craft's biological laboratory. Scientists first learned that the arm was working from a picture transmitted from the lander. The shot showed a footprint-like trench about 6½ in. long, 2½ in. wide and 2 in. deep that had been scooped out by Viking. Scientists were struck by the fact that the sides of the trench had not collapsed. Said Princeton University Geologist Robert Hargraves: "It's strange material. It looks...
Speculation that life exists on Mars has decreased this week even though the Viking spacecraft that landed on the planet more than two weeks ago relayed data back to Earth indicating Martian soil samples were emitting large quantities of oxygen...
Between now and mid-November, when Mars passes behind the sun and communications with earth are cut off, Viking's two cameras will take regular photographs of Chryse Planitia, observing what takes place throughout each Sol, or Martian day, of 24 hr. 37 min. Other instruments, meanwhile, will sample the contents of the Martian atmosphere, register the planet's temperatures, which range from a low of -200° during darkness to a high of +50° during the day, and record wind velocities, barometric pressures and humidity. A seismograph, placed aboard the Viking to detect Marsquakes and volcanic...