 David McKay / NASA |
This photomicrograph focuses on a large “biomorph” from a Mars meteorite fragment known as Nakhla e4150ed. Its chemical spectrum appears to be primarily iron oxide but with a carbon content slightly greater than the underlying matrix. |
Do rocks from Mars bear the tiny fossilized signs of life? Scientists who think so say they’ll subject meteorites from the Red Planet to a new round of high-tech tests in hopes of adding to their evidence.
For years, only one meteorite has figured in the controversy: ALH84001, a rock that was blasted away from Mars 16 million years ago, floated through space and fell through Earth’s atmosphere onto Antarctica about 13,000 years ago. Scientists reported in 1996 that the rock contained microscopic structures that looked like “nano-fossils,” but skeptics said the structures could have been created by chemical rather than biological reactions.
In November, the scientists who were behind the earlier research reported fresh findings that they said answered many of the objections from the skeptics – and they said two other space rocks traced to Mars seemed to have “biomorph” structures similar to those found in ALH84001. Pictures of the biomorphs were spread across a couple of Web pages back then, but generated relatively little attention at the time.
Over the weekend, the Spaceflight Now Web site provided further details on what the scientists saw and what they think it means.
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