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Mars probes 'may have killed life'

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Published Date: 08 January 2007
TWO Nasa space probes that visited Mars 30 years ago may have stumbled upon alien microbes on the Red Planet and inadvertently killed them.
A report claims the Viking space probes of 1976-77 were looking for the wrong kind of life and did not recognise it, and the process used to detect it could have killed it.

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1

TonyBLiar,

in orbit 08/01/2007 13:33:07

TWO US Marine Divisions that visited Iraq 3 years ago may have stumbled upon alien cultures and inadvertently killed them.

A report claims they were looking for the wrong kind of freedom and did not recognise it, and the process used to detect it could have killed it

2

Messalina,

08/01/2007 13:35:42

Join the space race ..... meet alien cultures ...... and kill them!

American foreign policy!

3

A Friend of Fernando Poo,

Newington 08/01/2007 15:36:55

"He's looking for life
To grind out
He's looking for life
So mind out
Uncle Sam's on Mars...."

(Hawkwind 1976)

4

bikerider1,

08/01/2007 15:41:55

its ok they were extremist microbes and had to go

5

Agent 99,

08/01/2007 16:13:06

Great article!

Note the high-precision reporting that clearly attributes the "report" not even to "unnamed sources" or "industry insiders", but to .... nobody.

And why, pray, is this important? History is full of this little (woops) accidents where someone goes to new territory and inadvertantly passes on some trivial bug to which the natives have no immunity, wiping them out. The (unsubstantiated) martian bugs probably weren't "life as we know it".

Now we'll never know. Another bug that won't come back and bite us.


 

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