The limitations on organic detection in Mars-like soils by thermal volatilization–gas chromatography–MS and their implications for the Viking results

Navarro‐González, R.; Navarro, Karina F.; Rosa, José M. de la; Íñiguez, Enrique; Molina, P.; Miranda, Luis D.; Luque, P.A.; Cienfuegos, Edith; Coll, Patrice; Raulin, F.; Amils, Ricardo; McKay, Christopher P.

doi:10.1073/pnas.0604210103

Cited by 159 publications

(112 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…Although Navarro-Gonzalez et al (18) cite our paper (3) on the Antarctic soils (their reference 21), they apparently have not read it carefully. Their conclusions are based on data obtained from 14 terrestrial soil samples.…”

Section: Recent Criticism Of the Viking Gcms Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…This conclusion is reached on the basis of a misunderstanding of the design concept, operation, and extensive tests of the Viking GCMS summarized above. Some of the experiments reported by Navarro-Gonzalez et al (18) are poorly conceived, executed, and interpreted, whereas the others are not relevant to the questions at hand. For these reasons and because the acknowledgment thanks ''Prof.…”

Section: Recent Criticism Of the Viking Gcms Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…However, recently there appeared a paper by NavarroGonzalez et al (18) suggesting that ''the Martian surface could have several orders of magnitude more organics than the stated Viking detection limit.'' This conclusion is reached on the basis of a misunderstanding of the design concept, operation, and extensive tests of the Viking GCMS summarized above.…”

Section: Recent Criticism Of the Viking Gcms Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Navarro-Gonzalez et al (18) claim (on page 16092) to have shown ''two limitations of the Viking TV [thermal volatilization]-GC-MS for the detection of organic material'': (i) that 500°C may be inadequate to release the organic compounds and/or (ii) that these compounds were oxidized during the heating to 500°C by the iron oxides present in the sample.…”

Section: Recent Criticism Of the Viking Gcms Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

On the ability of the Viking gas chromatograph–mass spectrometer to detect organic matter

Biemann

2007

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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] claims to show that the Viking GCMS (gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer) experiment, which carried out a search for organic matter at the surface of Mars in 1976, ''may have been blind to low levels of organics.'' To rebut this assertion, the Viking experiment, test data, and results on Mars are reviewed, and the fallacies in the design, execution, and interpretation of the new experiments presented by Navarro-Gonzalez et al. are critically examined.

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Section: Recent Criticism Of the Viking Gcms Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 93%

Section: Recent Criticism Of the Viking Gcms Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Recent Criticism Of the Viking Gcms Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Recent Criticism Of the Viking Gcms Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

On the ability of the Viking gas chromatograph–mass spectrometer to detect organic matter

Biemann

2007

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Unfortunately, all the experiments devoted to this goal failed to reveal any organic molecules, even the most simple, Klein, 1977. Nevertheless, molecules could have been missed by Viking (Navarro-Gonzalez et al 2006). In 2008, Phoenix lander performed evolved gas analysis experiments which, again, gave no result (phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/index.php).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) and the future missions to Mars

Cabane¹

2009

Proc. IAU

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Abstract. After their formation, and for almost 0.5 Gyr, Mars and Earth evolved in the same manner. On Earth, life occured very early, around 3.6 Gy ago. Then, the hypothesis that life might have occured also on Mars, and be extinct, is not unrealistic. If this is true, then complex molecules could be present, representing an early state of life-building blocks. Missions to Mars (Viking 1-2, Phoenix) have carried instruments capable to search for molecular indicators, although up to now, no positive detection has been obtained. Future missions to Mars (MSL-NASA, Exomars-ESA) will use enhanced experiments to try to end this quest.

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Magnesium sulfate as a key mineral for the detection of organic molecules on Mars using pyrolysis

et al. 2016

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International audiencePyrolysis of soil or rock samples is the preferred preparation technique used on Mars to search for organic molecules up today. During pyrolysis, oxichlorines present in the soil of Mars release oxidant species that alter the organic molecules potentially contained in the samples collected by the space probes. This process can explain the difficulty experienced by in situ exploration probes to detect organic materials in Mars soil samples until recently. Within a few months, the Curiosity rover should reach and analyze for the first time soils rich in sulfates which could induce a different behavior of the organics during the pyrolysis compared with the types of soils analyzed up today. For this reason, we systematically studied the pyrolysis of organic molecules trapped in magnesium sulfate, in the presence or absence of calcium perchlorate. Our results show that organics trapped in magnesium sulfate can undergo some oxidation and sulfuration during the pyrolysis. But these sulfates are also shown to protect organics trapped inside the crystal lattice and/or present in fluid inclusions from the oxidation induced by the decomposition of calcium perchlorate, and probably other oxychlorine phases currently detected on Mars. Trapped organics may also be protected from degradation processes induced by other minerals present in the sample, at least until these organics are released from the pyrolyzed sulfate mineral (~700 °C in our experiment). Hence, we suggest magnesium sulfate as one of the minerals to target in priority for the search of organic molecules by the Curiosity and ExoMars 2018 rovers

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The limitations on organic detection in Mars-like soils by thermal volatilization–gas chromatography–MS and their implications for the Viking results

Cited by 159 publications

References 36 publications

On the ability of the Viking gas chromatograph–mass spectrometer to detect organic matter

On the ability of the Viking gas chromatograph–mass spectrometer to detect organic matter

Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) and the future missions to Mars

Magnesium sulfate as a key mineral for the detection of organic molecules on Mars using pyrolysis

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