(Editor's Note: NASA Breaking News October Surprise Evidence Disclosed.)
Developing Story 2008: Life Discovery Likely on Mars
(Oct. 2008)
In August 2008, NASA alerted the White House of a major announcement soon to
be made concerning "provocative" Mars data that shows the potential for life.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory science team for
the MECA wet-chemistry instrument that made the
findings was kept out of a July news conference at the
University of Arizona Phoenix control center. The goal
was to prevent them from being asked any questions
that could reveal information before NASA was ready
to make an announcement, sources said.
"They have discovered water on Mars for the third or
fourth time," a senior Mars scientist told Aviation
Week. Scientists believe water must be available for
life to take root. But sources said other "provocative"
and "complex" data, not yet disclosed and not yet
discussed openly by NASA officials associated with
the Phoenix program, show that the red planet has "potential for life." Sources said the
revelations would not be made public until September.
In September, the U.S. space agency finally announced that its Phoenix Mars
Lander had detected "snow" falling from Martian clouds.
A robotic science probe on the surface of Mars beamed a laser
into the sky and made a surprising discovery: It was snowing.
"Nothing like this view has ever been seen on Mars. We’ll be
looking for signs that the snow may even reach the ground," said
Jim Whiteway, of York University, Toronto, which oversees the
meteorological experiments on NASA’s Phoenix lander.
The snowfall detected by Phoenix was taking place 2.5 miles
above the planet’s surface and vaporized before reaching the
ground. Because Mars wobbles on its axis far more than Earth
does (in some very long-term cycles, the poles face the sun) the
northern region where Phoenix landed has, in the past, been
warm.
Whiteway compared the snow to "diamond dust" that falls in the
Arctic and Antarctica. "What this is telling us is that water does
rise from the ground to the atmosphere and then precipitates down," he said. "So there is
a hydrological cycle on Mars, and now other experts will study the data and try to
determine what it all means."
Water vapor greatly favors to condense or form a crystal where there’s a pre-existing
speckle of material to cling onto — a "seed" or "nucleator." In 2008 Brent C. Christner,
an assistant professor of biological sciences at Louisiana State University discovered that
bacteria are by far the most active ice nuclei in nature. Christner and colleagues sampled
snow from Antarctica, France, Montana and Canada’s Yukon and found that as much as
85% of the nuclei were bacteria, he said. The bacteria finding was most common in
France, followed by Montana and the Yukon, and was even present in Antarctica. Some
scientists are now wondering if airborne microorganisms essentially steer snowflakes.
Phoenix scientists said the wet chemistry system microscopes on Mars have the
resolution to detect bacteria — which would be life. Researchers also want to learn
whether bacteria survive the process of serving as an ice crystal nucleus. If they do,
maybe this is part of their life cycle. Organic data from Mars could consequently start
major new arguments about life.
The revealing eye-opener is by reason of complex data at this time confirming that
bacteria seed most snowflakes.
In 1976, the Viking Landers successfully touched down on Mars. Experiments found
evidence of microorganisms in the Martian topsoil. However, scientists promptly
reported that an "oxidant" in the soil had fooled the experiments. In 1996, meteorite ALH
84001 from Mars was shown to contain microscopic structures
similar to terrestrial nanobacteria. Some scientists said the
Martian fossils discovered in Antarctica were proof of
extraterrestrial life, inspiring US President Bill Clinton to make
a formal TV statement to mark the occasion. However, the
present-day enthusiasm is not in relation to fossils from a longago
era, but rather over what’s happening right now on Mars.
Photos from the NASA robot show fluffy clouds drifting across the horizon of Mars each
morning. Inside those clouds, the pictures show cascades of the heaviest snowflakes
falling. If organic nucleators are in fact producing snowflakes on Mars, perhaps
tons of bio-molecules in the form of microorganisms are presently falling in the
Martian snow. Whiteway said the snow, along with frost and fog, began to appear around
August, as temperatures cooled on Mars. "This is now occurring every night," he said in
September. "Is this a habitable zone on Mars? I think we are approaching this
hypothesis," said principal investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona.
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Sources quoted in this report:
White House Briefed On Potential For Mars Life, Craig Covault, Aviation Week (Aug 1, 2008)
Falling Snow Seen on Mars, Irene Klotz, Discovery News, (Sept. 29, 2008)
Phoenix Lander sees snow falling on Mars, UPI, (Sept. 29, 2008)
Mars Craft Detects Falling Snow, Marc Kaufman, Washington Post (Sept. 30, 2008)
Christner, B.C., C.E. Morris, C.M. Foreman, R. Cai, and D.C. Sands, Ubiquity of biological ice nucleators in snowfall, Science 319 (Feb. 29, 2008).
Snowflakes carry a core of bacteria, Los Angeles Times, (March 01, 2008)