Word: oxygenate
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...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...
Viking scientists cautioned that more tests are necessary; the oxygen might simply have been released from some mineral in the soil sample when it was placed in the heated experiment chamber, and the radioactive gases produced in the other test might have been caused by an oxidation process not connected with life. Still, said Klein, "if it is a biological response, then it is a stronger response than we have seen in fairly rich terrestrial soil, and it would also imply that microbal life on Mars is highly developed-more intense than it is on earth...
Richard M. Goody, Mallinckrodt Professor of Planetary Physics, who is chairman of the Space Sciences Board, said yesterday scientists have realized the presence of hydrogen peroxide in small amounts on Mars could explain the high oxygen content of the soil...
Barghoorn said the production of oxygen "is a mystery." At two meetings of the exo-biology panel last year and this past March at which possible problems with the biology experiments on board the spacecraft were discussed there was never any suggestion that oxygen would be released...
...presence of oxygen was detected by the pyrolytic release experiment which was designed to test for the occurence of photosynthesis by exposing a soil sample to radiation from a xenon lamp. The oxygen was produced before the lamp was switched...