Aug 2 1976
From The Space Library
An early burst of activity recorded by an instrument aboard Viking 1 on the surface of Mars had begun to slow down, said biologists at JPL who had been startled by the high rate of reaction indicated by the labeled-release experiment. The instrument used a sample of Martian surface, fed with a nutrient of amino acids, sugar, and vitamins, plus a radioactive-carbon tracer that would produce radioactive carbon dioxide if the sample used the nutrient to grow or metabolize. A geiger counter in the instrument had counted as many as 4500 radioactive molecules per minute being released from the sampler over 8 hr, going as high as 8000 per min over the period of a day. Dr. Harold P. Klein of Ames Research Center, head of the Viking biology team, said the origins of the activity were not clear, and scientists were not sure whether "something is metabolizing" or not. It would take a wk to reach any conclusion from these results or those of the other two biology experiments, team members said. (NYT, l Aug 76, 1; W Post, 1 Aug 76, 1; 2 Aug 76, C-5; W Star, 2 Aug 76, A-1; WSJ, 2 Aug 76, 1)
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