Proof: Life on Mars was possible...
Today, NASA announced that the latest and greatest rover, Curiosity, has found evidence that three billion years ago Mars could have supported life.
John Grotzinger, the mission chief scientist, said, "The key thing here is an environment that a microbe could have lived in, maybe even prospered."
The Curiosity's drill bored down into the bedrock of what is believed to be a three billion-year-old lake bed, where it discovered fresh-water clay, nitrogen, sulfur, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and carbon. These are the ingredients for a pretty comfy life...if you happen to be an Earth-like microbe.
Grotzinger went on to say, "We found a habitable environment that's largely benign. You could have drank the water that flowed."
Apparently, the next mission will be more advanced and capable of searching for evidence that microbes might have been right there in that tasty drinking water. I hope Elon Musk and his friends at Space-X remember to bring cups when their 80,000 person Mars colony is established :-)
I found more details about this exciting NASA discovery in USA Today's article here: http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2013/03/12/life-on-mars/1982339/
John Grotzinger, the mission chief scientist, said, "The key thing here is an environment that a microbe could have lived in, maybe even prospered."
The Curiosity's drill bored down into the bedrock of what is believed to be a three billion-year-old lake bed, where it discovered fresh-water clay, nitrogen, sulfur, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and carbon. These are the ingredients for a pretty comfy life...if you happen to be an Earth-like microbe.
Grotzinger went on to say, "We found a habitable environment that's largely benign. You could have drank the water that flowed."
Apparently, the next mission will be more advanced and capable of searching for evidence that microbes might have been right there in that tasty drinking water. I hope Elon Musk and his friends at Space-X remember to bring cups when their 80,000 person Mars colony is established :-)
I found more details about this exciting NASA discovery in USA Today's article here: http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2013/03/12/life-on-mars/1982339/
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