In this chapter we discuss the present state of thought on the possibility that extant life in the form of micro-organisms may exist in the soils of Mars. The Viking missions of 1976 have been the only experimental packages sent to Mars with the specific objective of searching for extant life in Martian soil samples. Landed missions since then have been geological packages that, although examining soils and rocks for minerals that might have biological origins, relied on instruments which were not designed to look specifically for living organisms. The Viking experiments provided some evidence for the possibility of life; however, the general scientific opinion (with notable exceptions; e.g., see http://mars.spherix.com/spie2/Spie2001Oxides/Spie2001-oxides.htm) has been that these experiments showed negative results (Klein 1992; Dick 2006).
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Crawford, R.L., Newcombe, D.A. (2008). The Potential for Extant Life in the Soils of Mars. In: Dion, P., Nautiyal, C.S. (eds) Microbiology of Extreme Soils. Soil Biology, vol 13. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-74231-9_11
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