What was the primary goal of the three biological experiments conducted by the Viking landers in 1976?
Answer
To detect metabolic activity within Martian soil samples.
The Viking landers in 1976 represented the first dedicated, direct effort to test for extant life on Mars using instruments designed specifically for biological detection. These missions carried three distinct biological experiments, one of the most famous being the Labeled Release (LR) experiment. The fundamental purpose of these experiments was to determine if any living microorganisms within the collected Martian soil samples could consume provided nutrients and exhibit metabolic behavior. The goal was not merely to find organic molecules, but to observe these molecules being actively processed, which would indicate current biological function, even if rudimentary.
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