| Title: | Viking GCMS data restoration and digitalization project: recent results and new initiatives |
| Authors: | Ankita Das, Author |
| Material Type: | ISU Individual Project |
| Publisher: | Illkirch-Graffenstaden (France) : International Space University, 2020 |
| Size: | 1 online resource (55 p.) / col. ill. |
| Bibliography note: | Includes bibliographical references |
| Languages: | English |
| Description: | The Viking missions were sent to Mars by NASA in 1976 to detect microbial life and organics on Mars. The landers carried a suite of instruments and experiments on board out of which one was the Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometer (GCMS). The Viking missions were deemed unsuccessful as the GCMS failed to provide positive results for organics on Mars. The Viking data currently exists as microfilm data and coded digital data. The digital data was successfully decoded through a crowd-sourcing initiative earlier at ISU. This Individual Project follows the earlier work and aims to detect chloroacetone and acetone in the digitized data obtained from previous work. The broad objective of this project was to identify chlorinated organics such as chloroacetone and to determine the sources of chlorine and organic compounds. One of the results obtained from the directed searches was the non-detection of chloroacetone. Comparative assessments between blank run and sample runs supported earlier findings. The implications of non-detection of chloroacetone needs to be investigated in order to better understand the presence and detection of other chlorinated organics on Mars. |
| ISU program : | Master of Space Studies |
| Permalink: | https://isulibrary.isunet.edu/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=11598 |
Read online (1)
 Das, Ankita_IP (2.80 MB) Adobe Acrobat PDF |
