Peroxide Snow Hampers Search For Martians

"...the intense ultraviolet exposure, the low temperatures, the lack of water and the oxidants in the soil would make it difficult for any microbe to survive on Mars." - Gregory T. Delory.

by Staff Writers
Berkeley CA (SPX) Sep 13, 2006

The planet-wide dust storms that periodically cloak Mars in a mantle of red may be generating a snow of corrosive chemicals - including hydrogen peroxide - that would be toxic to life, U.S. researchers say.

Based on field studies on Earth, laboratory experiments and theoretical modeling, the researchers argue that oxidizing chemicals could be produced by the static electricity generated in the swirling dust clouds that often obscure the surface for months.

If these chemicals have been produced regularly over the last 3 billion years, when Mars has presumably been dry and dusty, the accumulated peroxide in the surface soil could have built to levels that would kill "life as we know it," said Gregory T. Delory of the University of California, Berkeley, lead author of one of the papers, published in the U.S. journal Astrobiology.

"If true, this very much affects the interpretation of soil measurements made by the Viking landers in the 1970s," said Delory.

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