# Scientists: Life on Mars was discovered already, 36 years ago
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-life-on-mars-was-discovered-already-36-years-ago/618614
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [April 12, 2012, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-life-on-mars-was-discovered-already-36-years-ago/618614 "2012-04-12T22:44:13Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2012, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-life-on-mars-was-discovered-already-36-years-ago/618614/1 "2012-04-12T22:44:13Z")
[Story.](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47031923/ns/technology_and_science-science/)
> [@](#):
>
> New analysis of 36-year-old data, resuscitated from printouts, shows that NASA found life on Mars, an international team of mathematicians and scientists conclude in a paper published this week.
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> Further, NASA doesn’t need a human expedition to Mars to nail down the claim, neuropharmacologist and biologist Joseph Miller, with the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine, told Discovery News.
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> "The ultimate proof is to take a video of a Martian bacteria. **They should send a microscope — watch the bacteria move,"** Miller said.
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> “On the basis of what we’ve done so far, I’d say I’m 99 percent sure there’s life there,” he added.
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> Miller’s confidence stems in part from a new study that reanalyzed results from a life-detection experiment conducted by NASA’s Viking Mars robots in 1976.
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> Researchers crunched raw data collected during runs of the Labeled Release experiment, which looked for signs of microbial metabolism in soil samples scooped up and processed by the two Viking landers. General consensus of scientists has been that the experiment found geological, not biological, activity.
Wait – they never **before** sent a probe equipped with a microscope?!
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### Author:  [@Strinka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strinka)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2012, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-life-on-mars-was-discovered-already-36-years-ago/618614/2 "2012-04-12T23:14:05Z")
From the same article:
> [@](#):
>
> Critics counter that the method has not yet been proven effective for differentiating between biological and non-biological processes on Earth, so it’s premature to draw any conclusions.
I wouldn’t jump to any conclusions yet.
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### Author:  [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2012, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-life-on-mars-was-discovered-already-36-years-ago/618614/3 "2012-04-12T23:21:49Z")
We have sent microscopes, but we haven’t been doing it that long. The problem with optical microsopes on a martian probe is sending the data back. The optical microscope aboard the [_Phoenix_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_%28spacecraft%29#Microscopy.2C_electrochemistry.2C_and_conductivity_analyzer) was one of the last ones we sent (2008), but could only do a resolution of 16 micrometers per pixel to be sent back to earth. Bacteria are about 80 micrometers in size, so that would be only 5 pixels long. How would you know it’s a bacteria if it’s only five pixels? I suppose you could look for movement of five-pixel sized blobs, but I don’t see how you could find anything conclusive at that resolution. The _Phoenix_ also carried an atomic force microscope capable of a much smaller resolution, but to do that you would have to fix the bacteria to a substrate, which would obviously destroy any chance of detecting movement.
Obviously, the Viking probes had even larger limitations to their ability to compress and transmit data, so any optical microscope they might have carried would be largely worthless in detecting life. In fact, the first optical microscope to be sent to Mars was on the _Beagle 2_, a British probe which crashed on the surface back in 2003 and was lost.
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### Author:  [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)
#### Post date: [April 13, 2012, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-life-on-mars-was-discovered-already-36-years-ago/618614/4 "2012-04-13T00:03:32Z")
I still volunteer to go there and look myself.
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [April 13, 2012, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-life-on-mars-was-discovered-already-36-years-ago/618614/5 "2012-04-13T00:18:15Z")
> [@Chimera](#):
>
> I still volunteer to go there and look myself.
Maybe we can work something out. But first:
1. Can you handle a microscope?
2. How long can you hold your breath?