First Contact - Scientific Breakthroughs In the Hunt For Life Beyond Earth
Just finished reading "First Contact - Scientific Breakthroughs In the Hunt For Life Beyond Earth" by Marc Kaufman, published by Simon Schuster in 2011.
Now like most avid readers I have quite the collection of unread books - it isn't an exaggeration on my part when I say that I think I have about a thousand or more unread books tucked away in one corner of my library and stored in my sister's unused bedroom - thanks Selma Franz!
One of the problem with reading a science book that is over ten years old is that some of the science being reported on is a bit outdated, still Kaufman's observations about the problem of determining what exactly life is and how it may be detected on Mars, Europa, and other worlds and moons in the Solar System.
One of this problems about detecting life beyond Earth is the long debated ambiguity of the Viking lander's results when it ran a suite of tests to look for life in Martian soil. Kaufman makes a fascinating case for the argument that it actually did find life.
Gil Levin, the scientist who designed an experiment that scooped up Martian soil, squirted nutrients into it that had been labeled with radioactive carbon-14, and waited to see if gases were emitted that carried that radioactive label.
If labeled gases were emitted, it would suggest that some microbe had eaten the nutrient and emitted a waste product. And in fact, that was exactly what was detected: a surge of radioactive carbon dioxide. As a control, the soil was then baked to high temperatures in an effort to kill off anything that might be living, and then the nutrients were added again. This time, no carbon dioxide appeared. It looked very much like a confirmation. Something in the soil had been alive, now it wasn't.
However, other tests carried on Viking, such as one for organic molecules, were negative. Faced with these conflicting results, a consensus formed that Levin's results had to be from some chemical rather than biological process. But ever since, Levin has been arguing that these other tests were flawed. He's shown that the organic-molecules test couldn't detect the low concentrations that are now known to be capable of supporting life. There is a real possibility that Viking found what it was sent to find.
Yet the debate continues on and Kaufman covers all sides of the debate.
Strongly Recommended.
Five Stars.
https://www.amazon.com/First-Contact-...
Now like most avid readers I have quite the collection of unread books - it isn't an exaggeration on my part when I say that I think I have about a thousand or more unread books tucked away in one corner of my library and stored in my sister's unused bedroom - thanks Selma Franz!
One of the problem with reading a science book that is over ten years old is that some of the science being reported on is a bit outdated, still Kaufman's observations about the problem of determining what exactly life is and how it may be detected on Mars, Europa, and other worlds and moons in the Solar System.
One of this problems about detecting life beyond Earth is the long debated ambiguity of the Viking lander's results when it ran a suite of tests to look for life in Martian soil. Kaufman makes a fascinating case for the argument that it actually did find life.
Gil Levin, the scientist who designed an experiment that scooped up Martian soil, squirted nutrients into it that had been labeled with radioactive carbon-14, and waited to see if gases were emitted that carried that radioactive label.
If labeled gases were emitted, it would suggest that some microbe had eaten the nutrient and emitted a waste product. And in fact, that was exactly what was detected: a surge of radioactive carbon dioxide. As a control, the soil was then baked to high temperatures in an effort to kill off anything that might be living, and then the nutrients were added again. This time, no carbon dioxide appeared. It looked very much like a confirmation. Something in the soil had been alive, now it wasn't.
However, other tests carried on Viking, such as one for organic molecules, were negative. Faced with these conflicting results, a consensus formed that Levin's results had to be from some chemical rather than biological process. But ever since, Levin has been arguing that these other tests were flawed. He's shown that the organic-molecules test couldn't detect the low concentrations that are now known to be capable of supporting life. There is a real possibility that Viking found what it was sent to find.
Yet the debate continues on and Kaufman covers all sides of the debate.
Strongly Recommended.
Five Stars.
https://www.amazon.com/First-Contact-...
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