Dirk Schulze-Makuch is a scientist who thinks NASA's Viking landers could have inadvertently destroyed the life they were searching for. In this Q&A, we ask why.

In 1975, NASA's Viking 1 spacecraft made history when it entered orbit around Mars. Its mission, along with others, was to detect if microbial life was possible on the otherwise elusive red planet .To accomplish such a task two landers were released on the Martian surface,

Dirk Schulze-Makuch believes NASA's Viking 1 may have harmed potential Martian life through its water-based detection methods.

One researcher raises the possibility that life existed in a sample of Martian soil. And then, in our quest to sniff it, we snuffed it out. Just like that. According to astrobiologist Dirk Schulze-Makuch of the Technical University Berlin in Germany,

Oops? Life on Mars may have been found — before it was accidentally destroyed during a NASA mission nearly 50 years ago, one scientist has suggested. In 1975, just six years after Apollo 11 touched down on the moon,

A scientist has said NASA may have accidentally killed life on Mars during a research mission to find it. For decades, scientists have been trying to find any signs of life on the Red Planet with no conclusive evidence as of yet.

For decades, scientists have posited that to find life on Mars they first need to find water. And in the absence of water, they have tried to see what happens when they introduce it onto the planet.