Aug 7 1996
From The Space Library
NASA reported that a team of scientists from Johnson Space Center and Stanford University had found evidence that "strongly suggested" that primitive life existed on the planet Mars. During a two-year study, the researchers discovered what they believed to be organic molecules of Martian origin on a potato-sized meteorite, which members of the National Science Foundation's Antarctica Meteorite Program had found in 1984. Scientists estimated that the meteorite was about 4.5 billion years old. According to the team's report, published in Science magazine, the remnants on the meteorite shared several mineral characteristics indicating biological activity, possibly even containing microscopic fossils of primitive, bacteria-like organisms. The minute scale of the evidence required the careful research of the team of specialists in the fields of microbiology, mineralogy, and chemistry. The largest of the possible fossils measured about 1/100th the diameter of a human hair. Only with recently developed technological instruments, including a dual-laser mass spectrometer, were the scientists able to make any substantial observations.
The announcement generated immediate excitement in the scientific community and in the mass media, although some scientists responded with a multitude of critical questions. The researchers carefully qualified their report, stating, "It is very difficult to prove life existed 3.6 billion years ago on Earth, let alone on Mars.
NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin pledged to make samples of the meteorite available to scientists throughout the world, to encourage a full scientific investigation.
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