Did Mars ever have life? Does it still? A meteorite from Mars has reignited the old debate. An international team that includes scientists from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne has published a paper in the scientific journal Meteoritics and Planetary Sciences, showing that martian life is more probable than previously thought.
“So far, there is no other theory that we find more compelling,” says Philippe Gillet, director of EPFL’s Earth and Planetary Sciences Laboratory. He and his colleagues from China, Japan and Germany performed a detailed analysis of organic carbon traces from a Martian meteorite, and have concluded that they have a very probable biological origin. The scientists argue that carbon could have been deposited into the fissures of the rock when it was still on Mars by the infiltration of fluid that was rich in organic matter… [More at links]