《Periodic Table Palladium 》作者：- Michael Swanwick【EPUB】

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Michael Swanwick's Periodic Table of Science Fiction 46 Pa Palladium 106.42 War of the Worlds Palladium metal has one unique property: Hydrogen can filter through it. Thus, it was a crucial component of the Viking landers' GC-MS (gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer) experiments. The gas chromatograph which separates out volatile substances and the mass spectrometer which detects ions were divided by a palladium separator. The function of the palladium was to allow organic molecules transported by the hydrogen "carrier gas" (but nothing else) to pass from the gas chromatograph to the mass spectrometer. All three Viking lander biology experiments indicated the presence of life within the Martian soil. However, because the GC-MS analysis showed no evidence of organic molecules, most scientists concluded that the first three tests had been false positives and, regrettably, there was no life on Mars. Alas, the experiment was flawed. Palladium is "poisoned" by sulfur, an element abundant in the Martian soil. The sulfur was heated and released by the chromatograph's oven, after which nothing was able to pass through the palladium separator. Which means that instead of