From: AUFORA News Update <dwatanab@acs.ucalgary.ca>
Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1996 00:11:56 -0700
Fwd Date: Tue, 24 Dec 1996 23:59:36 -0500
Subject: AUFORA - Doubt cast on Martian life theory
AUFORA News Update
Sunday, December 22nd, 1996 <www.helios.org>
___________________________
DOUBT CAST ON MARTIAN LIFE THEORY
from CNN
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Independent tests have cast doubt over earlier studies that
detected possible signs of past life on a Martian meteorite, according to an
article in Sunday's New York Times.
Results of one study appeared to invalidate three of four lines of evidence
scientists said in August were signs of microorganisms, and another study raised
doubts about the fourth line of evidence.
Dr. David McKay and Dr. Everett Gibson Jr. of the Johnson Space Center in
Houston reported on studies they led that concluded a meteorite, found in
Antarctica and believed to come from Mars, contained evidence of nanobacteria.
Their studies, they said, found evidence of carbonate globules that may indicate
water, deposits of minerals that have in some cases been produced by bacteria,
structures that resemble bacterial fossils on Earth, and rock compounds that
often have biological origins.
Scientists who worked on the latest studies were almost apologetic about their
findings, and stressed that their findings did not conclusively rule out the
possibility of life on Mars.
The new studies indicated that some of the signs taken to indicate possible life
could have come from contaminates on the Antarctic ice.
"There is nothing else in this rock that looks like nanofossils, and the things
that look like nanofossils aren't," said Dr. Harry McSween Jr. of the University
of Tennessee at Knoxville.
McKay said that his team disagreed with the new interpretation.
"We're basically not worried by all this," he said. "For one reason, we don't
think they're looking at the same places in the meteorite."
McKay added that his team was preparing reports on further examination of the
rock and would be presenting the findings in two to three months.
When the findings were originally reported, the scientists stressed that none of
the four lines of evidence proved the existence of past life, but that all four
taken together make a compelling case for microbial life on Mars.
The report of the new studies -- by McSween, Dr. Ralph Harvey of Case Western
Reserve University in Cleveland and Dr. John Bradley, a geochemist and executive
director of MVA Inc., a company in Norcross, Georgia, that specializes in the
microscopic analysis of materials -- appeared in Geochimica et Cosmochimica
Acta, an international journal of geochemistry.
__________________
AUFORA News Update
News, Information, Facts from the world of UFOlogy
To subscribe send e-mail to: dwatanab@acs.ucalgary.ca
AUFORA Web: http://www.aufora.org/
AUFORA News: http://www.aufora.org/news/
Helios Science News: http://www.helios.org/
UFO UpDates - Toronto -
updates@globalserve.net
Operated by Errol Bruce-Knapp - ++ 416-696-0304
A Hand-Operated E-Mail Subscription Service for the Study of UFO Related
Phenomena.
To subscribe please send your first and last name to
updates@globalserve.net
Message submissions should be sent to the same address.
|
Link it to the appropriate Ufologist or UFO Topic page. |
Archived as a public service by Area 51 Research Center which is not
responsible for content.
Financial support for this web server is provided by the
Research Center Catalog.
Software by Glenn Campbell.
Technical contact:
webmaster@ufomind.com