FLASH: New Scientific Paper on POSSIBLE Fossils in Martian Meteorite

I'm still slogging through the paper. If you're serious about doing the same, PM me with a email address. Apparently the pix are still under copyright and NASA itself hasn't decided to flaunt the results. It took almost three years of juried arguments to get the paper approved for publication.

reply to post by JimOberg


Yes, NASA might feel like it was burned in that major televised announcement in the mid-1990s of possible life-hints in a meteorite (I remember watching it in a college commons room, and enjoying the restrained enthusiasm on the screen). It's interesting this one has already been vetted for three years, and now goes to the wider community for more vetting. I'd love to read the entire paper with understanding, but my knowledge of the terms used is too limited for me to get much out of it, maybe others will take you up on your offer and can give us other viewpoints. thanks again for the thread!

reply to post by JimOberg


So this in part is thought to be some kind of Algae/Algae, the fossils of which have been in the meteorite, which itself has been a resident of Antarctica for 50,00 years. Have I got that bit right?
Y000593 is down the page a bit in this NASA PDF from...I'm not sure!


ntrs.nasa.gov...

JimOberg
I'm still slogging through the paper. If you're serious about doing the same, PM me with a email address. Apparently the pix are still under copyright and NASA itself hasn't decided to flaunt the results. It took almost three years of juried arguments to get the paper approved for publication.

As well they should be. No doubt they are desiring bigtime to make such an announcement, but due to what I outlined, there has to be no room for doubt, else what a mess. it would be starting a religion over a scientific understanding.

I suspect that all you will get out of the long paper is a simple researching the possibility of, not a suggesting it definitely is. the clip you quoted summed it up nicely that that's the view.

The link has images of the Yamato 000593 meteorite, externally, as a whole, and thin sections magnified. One also shows the location in Antarctica where it was found.
www.open.ac.uk...

Great find, I think the common unferstanding/belief is that Mars once was very capable of supporting life.

It's nice to have some possible hard evidence. Hopefully they can provee definitively that it was life and not some other process.

Blue Shift

JimOberg
This paper has just been cleared for publication, and an old, old friend of mine is one of the authors.

The papers disputing this should be interesting to read.

Grabbing popcorn for it.

I've read the paper and it is solid.

You have good friends Jim

Is he going to be involved with the 2020 rover mission? From what I gather, he should be.

reply to post by JimOberg


FIVE NEW MARS METEORITES FOUND

Xcathdra
reply to post by JimOberg

 

FIVE NEW MARS METEORITES FOUND

The link from 2002 details the discovery, with some analysis, of the meteorite in question. From your source:

The finding of nakhlites in Antarctica is for the first time and it suggests that the Yamato meteorite field potentially includes more unique meteorites. We describe the analytical results of the meteorite.

Field Occurrence: About 60 % of Y000593 is covered with black fusion crust, and the interior is greenish colored. Several days after the finding the quite similar specimen (Y000749 of 1.3 kg) was found. It is suggested that it is a paired specimen with Y000593. Two meteorites locate on a bare ice field of the north of JAREIV nunataks, and the area had insufficiently searched only by JARE-20. In the area, the heaviest meteorite in the Yamato bare ice field has been also found by the same expedition of JARE-41.

Has any of the same kind of analysis been done of Y000593's paired meteorite, looking for the same material or chemistry? I'm assuming by "paired" they mean that the other meteorite and the one which has been studied and reported on in this thread are from the same incoming object.

JimOberg
I'm still slogging through the paper. If you're serious about doing the same, PM me with a email address. Apparently the pix are still under copyright and NASA itself hasn't decided to flaunt the results. It took almost three years of juried arguments to get the paper approved for publication.

Well try this for an image:

meteorite image

reply to post by sy.gunson


better than nothing , but the information about what we are seeing is scanty, a slice of the meteorite under an electron microscope is about all I got from the wiki (summation of all knowledge hmmm)



cool pic tho ,so I added a little colour for contrast

funBox

The paper, and the data to which it refers, were reportedly vetted for three years before publication. That represents a great deal of work and attention. We may, it seems, assume that a high degree of importance has already been ascribed to these findings. It could be that the accumulated weight of evidence for Martian fossils in meteorites has finally reached the tipping point. Perhaps the balance of scientific opinion will now shift from rejection to acceptance.
It is apparently believed that the famous Nakhla meteorite contains very similar features to Yamato. This suggests the possibility that it and several other meteorites will now be found to have as good evidence for fossils, and that other, previous claims of the finding of minute fossils in meteorites will be accorded greater attention.

reply to post by JimOberg

Apparently the pix are still under copyright and NASA itself hasn't decided to flaunt the results. It took almost three years of juried arguments to get the paper approved for publication.

Damn!
How many other decades to admit the existence of life on Mars?

Damn! I'm not so Young!

The entire paper now available online, free. It appears that considerable care was taken to make the case that the fossil-like features are not likely to be due to geological/mineralogical factors, alone.
One receives the impression that if such structures were found in ordinary Earth rocks, they would be classed as fossils, without much ado. The similarity of the relevant features in the Yamato and Nakhla meteorites, despite the fact that the latter has been on Earth a much shorter time, seems to argue against terrestrial contamination.
online.liebertpub.com...

reply to post by Aleister


Replying to myself, but actually to others, has this meteorites companion (see post linked) been tested as well for the same signs of life/structures? Apparently the two of them are from the same meteor, so testing the second one with the same processes may (or may not) show similar results.

This is getting quite interesting. Said it once or twice, but thanks to Jim Oberg for bringing this here.

Here's the story we just broke at NBC:

Tiny Blobs and Tunnels in Meteorite Revive Debate Over Life on Mars
www.nbcnews.com...

We know from bacteriology that organisms on the micrometer scale often assume one of three shapes. Spiral, tube, or sphere. It's interesting that the same areas in the meteor that are enriched in carbon, relative to the rest of the rock, a possible sign of once-living things, assume two of these three shapes.
Further, we're told that the minute tubes are undulating in form, something like the course of a river. This is said to be characteristic of micro-fossils on Earth.
When a number of coincidences begin to pile up like this, it should generally be taken to mean something. Here it seems to mean the remains of once living things. The only serious obstacle to this interpretation appears to be that these particular things very probably come from the planet Mars.

JimOberg
Here's the story we just broke at NBC:

Tiny Blobs and Tunnels in Meteorite Revive Debate Over Life on Mars
www.nbcnews.com...

From your source. Are those tunnels where the little critters would have fed?

reply to post by Aleister


ahh at last some more news ,there's a couple of links from the news source that you can get more info and bigger pictures

link from nbc

further diagrams and annotations can be found down the page

from the site :





funBox

reply to post by funbox


In the words of Ben Bova when he first saw a close up of a Mars landscape, "Looks like Jersey".