Amazing Stuff

Life on Mars? Maybe not.(hat tip: technudge)

The Web was abuzz this past week when news reports began circulating that a pair of NASA scientists had found possible evidence of life on Mars.

According to a report on Space.com, the scientists told a group of NASA officials that they were preparing a paper on the subject for submission to the journal Nature.

The Space.com report states that what the scientists found "according to several attendees of the private meeting, is not direct proof of life on Mars, but methane signatures and other signs of possible biological activity remarkably similar to those recently discovered in caves here on Earth."

But NASA appears to have dashed some cold water on those reports. In a press release issued Friday, the agency states that the published reports are incorrect.

Boy, I would really, really like to see evidence of life on Mars or anywhere else in the galaxy. Can you imagine the impact that definitive proof of this would have on the way people think about life, the universe, and everything?

Remember when the first Apollo mission sent back images of the beautiful blue planet we lived on and stunned the imagination of the world? They say that the environmental movement and the way we think about our planet changed dramatically from that point on. Just imagine the impact of knowing we aren't the only life in the universe? Just imagine if that life were even evolved or sentient.

Amazing stuff.