What is interesting too is Biemann take on the matter - in 1978 and near the end of his life: since he lived long enough to heard about that perchlorate thing : he died in 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_BiemannWhen he made his conclusions in 1978 he wasn't that far off the mark (with 20/20, 100% hindsight of course !). I mean, he had the correct intuition: that some solvant inside his instrument ovens had destroyed the organics when actually looking at them - and quite logically brought a negative result. He just got the "hot solvant" wrong. He suggested it was NASA chemicals used to sterilize the ovens. Not quite: it was from Mars itself: perchlorates... Biemann himself had a interesting debate with other scientists, related to perchlorates and his instrument. Must have been fascinating to get new results after 30 years (1978 - 2008) but also perhaps a little painful. https://www.google.com/search?q="klaus+biemann""perchlorates"[zubenelgenubi: Wow! Very overly-long search thread truncated.]
What I have wondered about on recent Mars probes is why don't they put a microscope on board that could see a microbe in the samples collected. There are desktop electron microscopes available that could do the job. Do they draw too much power to be carried onboard? Can they not be miniaturized enough? Would it be too difficult to prepare a sample for viewing? I am just curious if anyone knows the answer.
Quote from: Eric Hedman on 02/08/2024 07:40 amWhat I have wondered about on recent Mars probes is why don't they put a microscope on board that could see a microbe in the samples collected. There are desktop electron microscopes available that could do the job. Do they draw too much power to be carried onboard? Can they not be miniaturized enough? Would it be too difficult to prepare a sample for viewing? I am just curious if anyone knows the answer.Several Mars probes have had microscopes. The Phoenix lander had two microscopes, an optical one and an atomic force microscope. Spirit and Opportunity both had microscopic imagers. Curiosity's MAHLI has a maximum resolution of 14 microns per pixel. Perseverance's SHERLOC has a context camera with a maximum resolution of 10 microns per pixel.
Quote from: whitelancer64 on 02/08/2024 03:30 pmQuote from: Eric Hedman on 02/08/2024 07:40 amWhat I have wondered about on recent Mars probes is why don't they put a microscope on board that could see a microbe in the samples collected. There are desktop electron microscopes available that could do the job. Do they draw too much power to be carried onboard? Can they not be miniaturized enough? Would it be too difficult to prepare a sample for viewing? I am just curious if anyone knows the answer.Several Mars probes have had microscopes. The Phoenix lander had two microscopes, an optical one and an atomic force microscope. Spirit and Opportunity both had microscopic imagers. Curiosity's MAHLI has a maximum resolution of 14 microns per pixel. Perseverance's SHERLOC has a context camera with a maximum resolution of 10 microns per pixel.Is it safe to assume that none of these have imaged anything that looks like a microbe on Mars?
