More evidence of life on Mars emerges
Life on Mars. The evidence keeps mounting for it while the silence from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration [NASA] is deafening. Even NASA’s European counterpart—the European Space Agency [ESA]—has begun asking pointed questions and dropping cryptic remarks.
And the fact that Mars had life and has life at this very moment seems to be quite apparent.
After all, reasonable evidence exists that both Mars Viking landers discovered evidence of life back in the 1970s.
Meteors found in the Antarctic contain fossil impressions of bacteria—those meteors that fell to Earth are pieces of the Martian landscape. [Martian meteorite]
Photographic evidence of running water, clouds and vegetation also exist. The late futurist, Sir Arthur C. Clarke, went on record that he believed an entire forest was visible at the Martian South Pole.
Eminent British researcher, Sir Charles Shults III, asserts that NASA has photographed numerous examples of fossils, but has chosen to ignore them. [Compilation photo] He’s even written an entire book about it.
Now more evidence that Mars has life has surfaced. And its literally surfaced right out of the mud. (Which is going to be NASA’s reputation soon—mud—if it doesn’t admit that our red neighbor has life.)
How NASA ‘stepped in it’
During April of 2009, the Mars planetary rover, Spirit, got stuck in mud. Until that time, a debate was raging withing the NASA bureaucracy about the presence of ground water. Water is thought to be crucial if Mars has any chance at all of supporting life. The scientists skeptical about any significant traces of water being discovered on Mars suddenly fell into an embarrassed silence when Spirit abruptly skidded into a muddy patch of ground and became stuck.
The water seeping through the topsoil of the Martian surface brought the little robot explorer to a grinding halt. As its wheels spun it tore up more of the surface and water—Martian water—seeped through.
Ray Arvidson, of Washington University in St. Louis, who was involved in the NASA Spirit program at the time says, “Liquid water and life kind of go together.”
None other than the prestigious Journal of Geophysical Research has published NASA’s latest conclusions: the mud was formed by liquid coming from melting snow. As Mars’ axis was titling the southern regions towards more direct exposure to the sun, the sub-surface heated up and the underlying permafrost melted. Water leeched through the sandy loam within inches of the surface.
Analysis of the water by the space agency also revealed the liquid contained several minerals including hematite, silica and gypsum while ferric sulphates are water soluble.
Meanwhile, certain scientists ground their teeth as they had hung their reputations on the assertion that Mars was most certainly a dead and arid world unable to support life.
All scientists involved with the study of Mars agreed that a billion years in the past the planet had copious amounts of water. How could they not agree? The evidence is there for all to see of huge tracts of erosion and ancient basins. The geology shouts out that Mars had vast, significant oceans. They may not have been as large or as deep as Earth’s oceans but they were oceans nevertheless.
And the evidence is almost overwhelming that those oceans were teeming with life.
Contemporary life on the Red Planet
The world renowned astrobiologist Chandra Wickramasinghe flatly states: “The discovery of liquid water on Mars combined with earlier discoveries of organic substances in a meteorite that came from Mars, and also of methane in the Martian atmosphere all point to the existence of life—contemporary life—on the Red Planet.”
Links
Water on Mars
Mars habitability and Biology
