NASA is assembling a group of scientists to determine just how to judge a little green man — or at least a little, possibly green, bacterium from Mars.
October 20th, 1999
Marshall expert, ex-astronaut to search Antarctica for aliens Alabama Live
Somewhere in Antarctica lie rocks that fell from outer space thousands or even millions of years ago. Inside them, scientists hope to find microscopic evidence of life on other planets.
October 19th, 1999
Research suggests tiny life on Mars The Daily Texan
Ongoing UT research adds another dimension to the theory that led NASA scientists to find evidence of life in a Mars meteorite.
October 6th, 1999
Martian Meteorite 3.9 Billion Years Old
A new study of the carbonate minerals found in a meteorite from Mars shows they were formed about 3.9 billion years ago. Scientists believe the planet had flowing surface water and warmer temperatures then, making it more Earth-like. Giant meteorites were blasting huge craters in its surface.
September 30th, 1999
Dating of Meteorite Mineral Leaves Mars-Life Hypothesis Alive
Scientists who proposed three years ago that a meteorite from Mars holds evidence of primitive martian life are thrilled by new research that sets the age of carbonate mineral deposits in the rock to 3.9 billion years old. The dating research, headed by Lars Borg, a geochemist at the Institute of Meteoritics at the University of New Mexico, is being lauded as the first to establish a reliable age for mineral processes that occurred after the formation of a meteorite. The research is published in this week’s issue of the journal Science.
September 2nd, 1999
Mars mound might have been built by microbes explorezone.com
If life ever existed on Mars, it may have left behind a massive calling card in the shape of a white rock mound covering over 200 square kilometres. According to a team of researchers in Scotland and Turkey, the mound looks very like those built by bacteria over 3 billion years ago here on Earth.
August 27th, 1999
A Meteoric Discovery: Extraterrestrial Water Washington Post
A meteorite that whistled into a West Texas yard last year contained the first extraterrestrial water ever captured on Earth, scientists reported yesterday.
August 27th, 1999
Ancient meteorite hints at origins of our water Christian Science Monitor
When Michael Zolensky first saw the meteorite that had recently punched a crater in a west Texas road, it looked like a fairly common piece of space rock. “We didn’t know it was unusual until we brought it into the lab, broke it open, and saw purple deposits,” says Dr. Zolensky, curator of NASA’s collection of cosmic dust and moon-rock samples.
August 27th, 1999
Water in meteorite spurs on search for new life Philadelphia Inquirer
Surf’s up in space. Thanks to new technologies, astronomers are finding water in the most unexpected nooks and crannies of the universe. The latest discovery, reported this week in the journal Science, is a tiny puddle of saltwater tucked inside a meteorite that plopped down in Texas last year – the first time liquid water has been recovered from an object from space.
August 27th, 1999
Scientists examine water found inside meteorite
Scientists who cracked open a meteorite that fell to Earth last year found tiny pockets of briny water, providing the first close look at water not originating on earth, according to an article in the journal Science. While astronomers have long thought that water flowed through asteroids and other bodies formed at the beginning of the solar system, the meteorite’s liquid cargo offered the first chance to actually study it in a lab.