Word: soils
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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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...
...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...
...additional experiments are included in the biology package on board Viking. The gas exchange looks for evidence of respiration by adding some moisture and nutrients to the soil to determine if the soil is "breathing...
...third experiment, the so-called "chicken-soup experiment," involves innoculating the soil with a complex nutrient broth that provides substrates for many biological activities. The soil is then incubated to encourage the growth of life...