NASA may have accidentally destroyed life on Mars 50 years ago, claims German scientist

Alien life was discovered on Mars 50 years ago, but NASA destroyed it unintentionally, Dirk Schulze-Makuch, astrobiology professor and faculty member at the Technical University Berlin, has claimed.

Before launching Curiosity rover, NASA had started the Viking programme in the mid-1970s and sent two landers to the Martian surface. The mission not only managed to offer the first glimpses of the Martian surface but also performed a biological analysis of its soil to check for signs of life

Before launching Curiosity rover, NASA had started the Viking programme in the mid-1970s and sent two landers to the Martian surface. The mission not only managed to offer the first glimpses of the Martian surface but also performed a biological analysis of its soil to check for signs of life.

As per Schulze-Makuch, the mission's findings contained several geological formations consistent with the effects of water. Additionally, the Martian volcanoes and their slopes bore close resemblances to those in Hawaii -hinting at their previous exposure to rain.

The Viking landers had also identified tiny amounts of chlorinated organics which were initially believed to be contamination from Earth but the subsequent missions have confirmed the presence of native organic compounds on Mars in a chlorinated form, the scientist wrote in a column in Big Think.