Viking labeled release (LR) experiment

One of three biology experiments carried aboard each of the Viking landers.

Originally known as "Gulliver";¹ the labeled release (LR) experiment was developed by Gilbert Levin and designed to detect carbon dioxide released by microorganisms as a result of their metabolic activity.² On Earth, this would be classed as a respiration experiment. A sample of soil was placed inside a culture chamber and a broth of 7 organic nutrients (formate, glycolate, glycine, D-alanine, L-alanine, D-lactate, and L-lactate), labeled with radioactive carbon-14, allowed to drip onto it. If microbes were present in the sample, it was assumed they would metabolize the organic compounds in the nutrient and release radioactive carbon dioxide which would be trapped on a chemically coated film at the window of a Geiger counter. The LR experiment had the virtue of being able to detect growth, as well as metabolism, since the rate of carbon dioxide production would increase exponentially with a growing culture. Like the Viking gas exchange (GEX) experiment, however, it assumed that Martian microbes would be (a) activated by liquid water (which might not be true since any organisms on Mars might have adapted to a completely waterless environment), and (b) able to metabolize the same organic nutrients as terrestrial organisms (whereas, in fact, such Earthly foodstuffs might be toxic to life based on a different biochemistry). These drawbacks were avoided by the Viking pyrolytic release (PR) experiment.

References

Levin, G. V., Heim, A. H., Clendenning, J. R., and Thompson, M.-F. "'Gulliver' - A Quest for Life on Mars," Science, 138, 114 (1962)
Levin, G. V. "Detection of Metabolically Produced Labeled Gas: TheViking Mars Lander," Icarus, 16, 153 (1972).

Related categories

• MARS TOPICS
• ASTROBIOLOGY

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