It was around a few weeks back that Dr Jim Green, a chief NASA scientist sensationally predicted that alien life will be discovered on Mars within the next few months. Green also revealed that the discovery will be made before 2021, and he made it clear that the world is not prepared enough to accept the reality of alien existence. And now, another former NASA scientist Gilbert Levin has claimed that humans have already understood the fact that earth is not the only planet where life thrives.
Gilbert Levin made these remarks in a recent opinion piece written for Scientific American. The former scientist made it clear that humans initially understood the presence of extraterrestrials during an experiment conducted for NASA's Viking mission to Mars in 1976.
During the experiment, the Viking lander mixed soil samples from Mars with a nitrogen-based solution. Scientists believed that if microorganisms in the Martian soil metabolized the nutrients, it would let off radioactive carbon dioxide gas. And surprisingly, the results of these experiments were positive, and it indicated the presence of alien microbes in the Martian soil.
In his recent writeup, Gilbert Levin also urged NASA scientists to review the data obtained by Viking lander, so that more details regarding the existence of alien life can be unveiled.
"Meanwhile a panel of expert scientists should review all pertinent data of the Viking LR together with other and more recent evidence concerning life on Mars. Such an objective jury might conclude, as I did, that the Viking LR did find life. In any event, the study would likely produce important guidance for NASA's pursuit of its holy grail," wrote Levin.
A couple of days back, the 2019 Nobel Prize for Physics winner Professor Didier Queloz from Switzerland had revealed that alien life will be discovered within the next 30 years. The Swiss physicist also added that earth may not be the only planet in the universe that hosts life.
