Saturday, November 28, 2009 | Science : Evolution and Biology | print version

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Evidence of life on Mars lurks beneath surface of meteorite, Nasa experts claim

by Hannah Devlin - TimesOnline

Thanks to Chipshotz for the link.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/space/article6934078.ece

Nasa scientists have produced the most compelling evidence yet that bacterial life exists on Mars.

It showed that microscopic worm-like structures found in a Martian meteorite that hit the Earth 13,000 years ago are almost certainly fossilised bacteria. The so-called bio-morphs are embedded beneath the surface layers of the rock, suggesting that they were already present when the meteorite arrived, rather than being the result of subsequent contamination by Earthly bacteria.

“This is very strong evidence of life on Mars,” said David Mackay, a senior scientist at the Nasa Johnson Space Centre , who was part of the team of scientists that originally investigated the meteorite when it was discovered in 1984.

In a 1996 study of the sample, Dr Mackay and others argued that the microfossils were evidence of life, but sceptics dismissed the claims, saying that similar-shaped structures might not be biological. The new analyses, the product of high resolution electron microscopy, make a strong case for the Allan Hills 84001 Meteorite having carried Martian life to Earth. The microscopes were focused on tiny magnetite crystals present in the surface layers of the meteorite, which have the form of simple bacteria. Some argued that these could be the result of a carbonate breaking down in the heat of the impact.
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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/space/article6934078.ece

Posted: Saturday, November 28, 2009 | Permalink

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1. Comment #435990 by CaptainMandate on November 28, 2009 at 11:46 am

@David Bowie

yeah

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2. Comment #435995 by Ignorant Amos on November 28, 2009 at 12:12 pm

Does this mean that life did start in two separate places...or was the life on Mars and Earth seeded from further afield....it's fascinating stuff.

Ha Ha Ha....what story will the cretinists come away with to work this one into the "not" so Good Book....I suppose the biomorphs could have left the ark after the flood and made their own way to Mars...marsupials got to Oz after all.

*tongue in cheek*

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3. Comment #435999 by gobes on November 28, 2009 at 12:35 pm

Well God obviously had to have a trial run right? So Mars may have been Earth 1.0.

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4. Comment #436001 by Saerain on November 28, 2009 at 12:38 pm

Call me crazy, but the fact that we may have found fossilized bacteria in a meteorite makes the fact that it came from Mars seem insignificant. The implications are significantly greater than, 'Hey, Mars could once support life,' which we are already pretty comfortable in asserting.

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5. Comment #436009 by Friend of Icelos on November 28, 2009 at 1:21 pm

I think I'll remain skeptical about this for the moment, not because the research may or may not be good, but because the discovery of life on or from another planet is so significant that I'd rather wait until these findings have a chance to percolate within the greater scientific community.

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6. Comment #436011 by DanDare on November 28, 2009 at 1:41 pm

So, would the microbes have been fossilised before being blasted into space? That would suggest life may have died out on Mars before 16m years ago. Or maybe it never got further than bacteria and that's what is still there now.

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7. Comment #436026 by BiologicDentists.com on November 28, 2009 at 2:35 pm

Interesting stuff. Thanks

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8. Comment #436037 by j.mills on November 28, 2009 at 2:57 pm

Wait just a cotton-pickin' minute. Didn't Richard Dawkins invent biomorphs about 25 years ago, for The Blind Watchmaker? So, what, in our future he time-travels to Mars's distant past and seeds it with biomorphs that then turn up in a meteorite - and maybe seeds life on Earth? OMG! Richard is god after all!!!

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9. Comment #436043 by InYourFaceNewYorker on November 28, 2009 at 3:14 pm

Damn, this is exciting. I wonder what this life's DNA equivalent is.

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10. Comment #436046 by whatwoulddawkinsdo on November 28, 2009 at 3:33 pm

Give Mars a few billion years... they'll have even more complex life forms than us

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11. Comment #436047 by adamsan.hu on November 28, 2009 at 3:34 pm

'Meteor form Mars' How does this work? What phenomenon can start a stone from a planet and launch it into space?

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12. Comment #436051 by amuck on November 28, 2009 at 3:47 pm

Meteor form Mars' How does this work? What phenomenon can start a stone from a planet and launch it into space?

A big object striking the surface of Mars would do it, one of the many "flying mountains" in orbit between Mars and Jupiter.

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13. Comment #436053 by Darwinorlose on November 28, 2009 at 3:52 pm

It would be a whole lot easier to "start a stone from a planet" like Mars simply because the escape velocity is a whole lot less. From Mars, it's 5 km/s while Earth's is about 11 km/s. Plus thinner atmosphere means less resistance, and Mars has been hit by a lot of asteroids/meteor's (or is it meteorite?), which would have kicked up and out a lot of martian material. Heck! An eruption from Mons Olympia - whose summit is above the "air line" might send a lot of stuff up! What an adventure that would be to climb Mons Olympia from base to summit!

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14. Comment #436055 by alphabravo on November 28, 2009 at 3:56 pm

So this could either be a different kind of life entirely, or the seeds of early bacterial life on earth?

Either possibility seems thrilling, with huge implications for biology and indeed exobiology!

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15. Comment #436057 by Steve Zara on November 28, 2009 at 4:01 pm

I would be very cautious. First of all the worm-like structures are far too small to be bacteria as we know them. There could well be some other origin for them. What is more interesting is the chemical evidence, but being "consistent with" being formed by bacteria is not the same as definitely being formed by bacteria.

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16. Comment #436067 by squinky on November 28, 2009 at 4:17 pm

Wow, 16 million years in space. Forgive me if I'm a bit skeptical of bacterial life surviving that long. "This is very strong evidence of life on Mars" is hype. What he means to say is 'we have preliminary findings that might suggest the presence of bacterial life on a single Martian meteorite but there is so much more work to do'.

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17. Comment #436069 by TIKI AL on November 28, 2009 at 4:22 pm

"Meteor from Mars' How does this work? What phenomenon can start a stone from a planet and launch it into space?"

...Martian kids, stone, duct tape, large bottle rocket, match = life on Earth.

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18. Comment #436073 by bluebird on November 28, 2009 at 4:34 pm

Monday I hope to receive a NASA E newsletter about the meteorite.

Dr. David McKay - any relation to Dr. Chris McKay? He was on a recent NatGeo show about terraforming Mars. His idea of how it can possibly be done (& the ethics involved) made for a great program.
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/expedition-week/4588/Overview#tab-Photos/0

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19. Comment #436080 by ggab7768 on November 28, 2009 at 4:43 pm

No one is saying that bacteria survived the journey. The possible remains of fossilized bacteria were found inside the rock.

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20. Comment #436093 by DoctorMelkor on November 28, 2009 at 5:46 pm

Of course, one would not expect something that had originated on Mars to BE "bacteria as we know them." Personally, I don't like the fact that the word "bacteria" is even being used to refer to such possible organisms. If they actually came from a completely separate evolutionary process, they couldn't be bacteria at all, though the term "microbe" could still be applicable.

Of course, if these things really are the remains of "bacterial" life on a single Martian meteorite and that life didn't come from Earth, then it either came from Mars or from the impactor that blasted it off of Mars...either way, that's extraterrestrial life.

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21. Comment #436095 by Jos Gibbons on November 28, 2009 at 5:53 pm

Comment #436093 by DoctorMelkor

Good point. Do you think "prokaryote" would be OK? These things are presumably small enough to lack nuclei.

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22. Comment #436097 by Steve Zara on November 28, 2009 at 5:58 pm

Comment #436093 by DoctorMelkor

The point is that bacteria as we know them can get very small, but the smallest (mycoplasma) seem to be just about as small as you can get while still having all the proteins and structures for metabolism. The structures in the meteorite are smaller than that, so it is very unlikely indeed that they are fossils of living organisms.

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23. Comment #436105 by DoctorMelkor on November 28, 2009 at 6:45 pm

Comment #436097 by Steve Zara

I'm not so certain, though. Bacteria, even mycoplasma, are already very advanced and complex organisms. In the very early days of life on Earth there would have been simpler and possibly much smaller forms of life, especially if things had not gotten to the point where resources were scarce and much-competed-for, and so it might have been if life was developing on Mars. They might not need much more than genetic material and something to encourage the formation of a lipid-bilayer or the equivalent. Of course, I know that I'm speculating and that the evidence is very far from conclusive that there was life. Also, I know that it's dangerous to draw conclusions when you have strong desires for particular explanations. But I don't think it's quite as unlikely that these could be evidence of former life as some think...though I think that we have to be pretty ruthless about ruling out ALL possible other explanations before coming to the "life" conclusion on this issue.

Extraordinary claims...etc., etc.

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24. Comment #436125 by Drosera on November 28, 2009 at 7:30 pm

Speaking of bacteria is jumping to conclusions. Bacteria are after all highly specific, DNA-based life forms. If life evolved independently on Mars I wouldn't take it for granted that it was DNA-based.

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25. Comment #436153 by Tallus on November 28, 2009 at 8:46 pm

ggab7768 "...possible remains of fossilized bacteria were found inside the rock..."

original post..
"The microscopes were focused on tiny magnetite crystals present in the surface layers of the meteorite, which have the form of simple bacteria. Some argued that these could be the result of a carbonate breaking down in the heat of the impact."

scientific caution here - it's so important to read the reports carefully

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26. Comment #436155 by Demotruk on November 28, 2009 at 8:56 pm

Oh come on, can't we just take the conclusion and skip the skepticism? It would be cool if it were true, and as the religious have thought us, that makes it true!

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27. Comment #436216 by Reckless Monkey on November 29, 2009 at 12:35 am

The Catholics, Mormons, JW's and all the rest have a whole new world to convert. I'm trying to image push bikes on Mars. The banning of tiny little condoms and tiny little Watchtowers being left under rocks.

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28. Comment #436221 by King of NH on November 29, 2009 at 12:47 am

I can't seem to find any information on this study at Nasa's page. Maybe they don't think it's all that big of a deal. In fact, all Google searches lead me back to the Timesonline website in round about ways.

I'm not trying to be skeptical here. I do honestly want someone to smack me across my head with the study's abstract. But I must say if the claim was "Bigfoot found!" or "Jesus's Divinity Proven!" I would demand more evidence then I seem to want for "Tiny Aliens Found on 13M Year Old Frozen Rock!"

Why does it seem Nasa has no idea they did this study, or, to be kinder, have no idea people would want to know?

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29. Comment #436229 by j.mills on November 29, 2009 at 1:11 am

King of NH: from the article:

The investigation was published in the November issue of Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, the journal of the Geochemical and Meteoritic Society. Nasa is expected to announce the findings formally on Monday

So hold yer horses...

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30. Comment #436236 by Koreman on November 29, 2009 at 1:30 am

"Daniel my brother, you are older than me
Do you still feel the pain,
of the scars that won't heal, your eyes have died but you see more than I, Daniel,
You're a star in the face of the sky"

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31. Comment #436277 by chuckgoecke on November 29, 2009 at 4:03 am

I was pretty much convinced back in 1997. This just strengthens the case. We now have independent data that suggests life in the methane in Mars' atmosphere. http://richarddawkins.net/articles/3526
Now the questions are: how worried are we going to be about sterilizing any future Mars craft, and does this impact possible future terraforming of Mars?

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32. Comment #436332 by godisnotgreat on November 29, 2009 at 9:37 am

Did anyone notice the 2012 doomsday ad on the right?

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33. Comment #436351 by mmurray on November 29, 2009 at 1:07 pm

What an adventure that would be to climb Mons Olympia from base to summit!

With oxygen or without?

Michael

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34. Comment #436360 by King of NH on November 29, 2009 at 3:27 pm

Thank you j.mill... I might be turning too skeptical, but I'd rather fall off that side than the other. In this case, I think it has more to do with Sagan's advice: The more you want something to be true, the more careful you should be in accepting it is true.

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35. Comment #436610 by Kiwi on November 30, 2009 at 12:32 am

Comment #436125 by Drosera

Yes, if they exist, until they are shown by genetic analysis to be related to Earth bacteria, it would be better to call any such lifeforms "Bacteria-like", "microlife" or MarsMicros or something like that.

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36. Comment #436794 by Shiva on November 30, 2009 at 10:04 am