When planetary scientists first saw evidence of a water ocean beneath the frozen surface of Europa, everyone immediately began pondering the likelihood that the Jovian moon could harbor advanced life forms — perhaps even fishlike creatures.
March 6th, 2000
Resurrecting life on Mars? Nature Science Update
Can bacteria leave fossils? Debate on this contentious question is central to the mystery of whether or not there is, or ever was, life on Mars. And it is a debate that has just re-opened, thanks to a report in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters.
February 21st, 2000
Bacteria In Murchison/ Efremovka Meteorites
At a conference in Denver, July 20-22, 1999, a pair scientists from the Russian Academy of Sciences presented sharp images that look very much like fossilized microorganisms taken from fragments of several carbonaceous meteorites.
February 21st, 2000
Fossilized Bacteria Found in Ancient Meteorite
Russian scientists claim to have discovered fossils of primitive extraterrestrial organisms in a meteorite thought to be a leftover from the formation of the solar system.
February 15th, 2000
Atmospheric energy for subsurface life on Mars? National Academy of Sciences
The location and density of biologically useful energy sources on Mars will limit the biomass, spatial distribution, and organism size of any biota. Subsurface Martian organisms could be supplied with a large energy flux from the oxidation of photochemically produced atmospheric H2 and CO diffusing into the regolith.
February 6th, 2000
UW experts squelch hope of finding folks on that final frontier Seattle Times
It’s a thought that grips most everyone who stares into the unfathomable depths of a star-speckled night: Is there anybody out there? The odds, say Peter Ward and Don Brownlee, are probably more remote than you think. Earth, they contend, is simply too special, the result of myriad physical conditions missing from most of the universe, with just enough time and other circumstances to let complicated life arise.
January 12th, 2000
Did Bacteria Survive Trip From Mars?
Astronomers reported on Wednesday they had found a tough but peaceful pair of bacteria that might have been able to survive the arduous trip from Mars, back when the Red Planet could have supported life.
January 12th, 2000
Organic Molecules in Space Found
A primordial soup of complex organic chemicals that could be the precursors of life is cooked up very quickly after the birth of stars, new research suggests. Another international team has made calculations that suggest that life could have arisen on Mars and then been transferred to Earth by meteorites jolted away from the surface of Mars by asteroid impacts. Early in solar system history, it is also calculated that up a trillion Earth rocks were blasted into space and traveled to Mars. This means that life from Earth could have once seeded Mars. “Because of the heavy traffic between Earth and Mars, we couldn’t decide which came first,” Martian life on Earth, or the reverse, said Mileikowsky.
January 1st, 2000
Life Beyond Earth National Geographic
Something astonishing has happened in the universe. There has arisen a thing called life
December 30th, 1999
Bugs in space
Astrobiologists are to test whether life from Mars could have survived a journey to Earth by hiding inside meteorites. Scientists from the Stone group, including Professor Colin Pillinger of the Open University and Professor Howell Edwards at the University of Bradford, will send bacteria into space and back inside manmade ‘meteorites’ attached to the heat shield of a Russian space probe, Foton 12.