[Aracelis]

It's going to take a time for the enormity of this to soak in if true.

Indeed...my brain's been buzzing all day with various hypotheses, not to mention thoughts of how the general public would react given the current political/religious environment.

[Don Joe]

Indeed...my brain's been buzzing all day with various hypotheses, not to mention thoughts of how the general public would react given the current political/religious environment.

Politically I can't say, I see chaos no matter what happens or doesn't happen on Mars (look at my posts in the Larry Craig thread for background). As far as "religious", I don't see a problem. I'm a fairly conventional "evangelical Christian", and I don't have a problem with either life "scattering" off this planet via impact, or, God creating it on other planets if he saw fit.

[FireTrack]

...my brain's been buzzing all day with various hypotheses

Of course, the next step would be missions dedicated specifically to the search for any remaining life forms (surely something would have survived/adapted) and to the search/cataloging of fossilized remains of previous Martian life.

You wanta take a ride??? :-)

[FireTrack]

NASA released new opportunity grind micro images. I'm impressed by how perfectly round the sphericals are and how they are evenly dispersed. The RAT screwed up some possible fossils doing the grind but looks like another critter hiding in a crevice on the left. You can make out what appears to be its head. I wonder if the critters had anything to do with how these crevices were formed?

Maybe the critters are just accretion formations and not critters at all? Personally, I don't think so.