Free Republic

Day to day, it’s easy to lose sight of an astonishing fact: Since 2012, humankind has been driving a nuclear-powered sciencemobile the size of an SUV on another planet. This engineering marvel, NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity, has revolutionized our understanding of the red planet. And thanks to the intrepid rover, we now know that ancient Mars had carbon-based compounds called organic molecules—key raw materials for life as we know it. A new study published in Science on Thursday presents the first conclusive evidence for large organic molecules on the surface of Mars, a pursuit that began with NASA’s Viking landers...

The robot, which has been exploring Mars for almost six years, discovered new organic compounds and cycles of methane that could point to life on Mars. _____________________________________________________________________________ Since 2012, the Curiosity rover has been exploring Mars near a place called Mount Sharp. The robot has found chemical traces that could indicate this place was watery billions of years ago—and could have supported life. NASA can't say whether there ever was life on Mars, but new evidence reinforces the idea that Mars was habitable. NASA's flagship Mars rover, Curiosity, has been combing the surface of Mars for signs of life for...

Scientists found life on Mars back in the 70s By Roger Highfield, Science Editor Last Updated: 6:01pm BST 23/08/2007 The soil on Mars may indeed be teeming with microbes, according to a new interpretation of data first collected more than 30 years ago. Mars could be home to “extremophiles” The search for life on Mars appeared to hit a dead end in 1976 when Viking landers touched down on the red planet and failed to detect biological activity. There was another flurry of excitement a decade later, when Nasa thought it had found evidence of life in a Mars meteorite...