NASA team cites new evidence of life on Mars

NASA's Mars Meteorite Research Team reopened a 14-year-old controversy on extraterrestrial life last week, reaffirming and offering support for its widely challenged assertion that a 4-billion-year-old meteorite that landed thousands of years ago on Antarctica shows evidence of microscopic life on Mars.

In addition to presenting research that they said disproved some of their critics, the scientists reported that additional Martian meteorites appear to house distinct and identifiable microbial fossils that point even more strongly to the existence of life.

"We feel more confident than ever that Mars probably once was, and maybe still is, home to life," team leader David McKay said at a NASA-sponsored conference on astrobiology.

The researchers' presentations were not met with any of the excited frenzy that greeted the original 1996 announcement about the meteorite -- which led to a televised statement by President Bill Clinton in which he announced a "space summit," the formation of a commission to examine its implications and the birth of a NASA-funded astrobiology program.

www.washingtonpost.com...


Hope this has not already been discussed. I did not find it in a search.


[edit on 4-5-2010 by expat2368]

So NASA is taking "baby steps" towards 'disclosure' it seems.

This is just another one of those little tiny steps.

They are basically saying "Hey Aliens Exist!" but in a subtle and low key way.

I wonder when the next revelation will come along? I hope I don't have to wait another 14years to find out something so mundane and minuscule.

I just wish they would be more direct about all of this.

This is a super huge deal though. And here at ATS this issue will fit in very nicely. Excellent find! S+F

[edit on 4-5-2010 by muzzleflash]

i think we'll see more and more of these storys commining out in the next few years as other countrys are making their way into space weve already seen this with india and the water on the moon thing.

I hope that in my lifetime we will have official evidence and acknowledgement, not only that life exists/existed on Mars, but that it is also quite common throughout the solar system and beyond.

James Green is the director of NASA's planetary science division.
Take a look on what he said on CNN about Mars...

amfix.blogs.cnn.com...