[Simmy2.5]

Pretty interesting news I've come across about Mars. Interesting that, other then the BBC, none of the other space sites I've gone to had this.

Which tonight, the 'brilliant' Richard C. Hoagland has something to say about this "censorship" on Coast to Coast. :-P

[RadioAstronomer]

Which tonight, the 'brilliant' Richard C. Hoagland has something to say about this "censorship" on Coast to Coast

LOL!

[bayourod]

Why does it signify life? Is it because baby sh*t smells like amonia?

[Damagro]

Ammonia may have been found in Mars' atmosphere which some scientists say could indicate life on the Red Planet

Ammonia could be a sign of urine on the planet.

[Paradox]

Mars, the angry red planet? Naw, just pissed off.

[BlazingArizona]

Ammonia may have been found in Mars' atmosphere...

Martians eat asparagus! Pass it on.

[hispanarepublicana]

So, Martians look like this:

[TheCrusader]

Amonia on Mars could mean ten thousand things other than the existence of little green Martians with antennae. These extra-terrestrial "scientists" will always find something to justify their research, because they are looking with severe prejudice, and they need continuous funding to prolong their hunt and pay for their BMWs.

[hemogoblin]

[GeronL]

... I never knew ammonia was a life form

[SunkenCiv]

Mars has microbial life, it was detected by the Viking mission, but NASA has persistently denied this to this day. Now, when they really need a pretext to spend $400 billion (or more) to send a suicide missio- er, humans to Mars and (one would hope) back, they have to try ploys like this.

[SunkenCiv]

'jasee this one?

[arielb]

http://www.nature.com/news/2004/040726/full/040726-3.html
Did they not also see ammonia? Definitely not, despite recent stories to the contrary. Formisano has been hotly pursued by journalists since reports about Mars Express finding ammonia in the atmosphere began to circulate earlier this month. He now insists to news@nature.com that he has not detected ammonia, although in a recent conference abstract he had optimistically suggested that his team might have done so. This suggestion alone was enough to set tongues wagging, but some reporters were too eager to turn suggestion into certainty, Formisano says. "They want to shoot first, and they shoot the wrong statement."

Mike Mumma confirms that his own group has spent ten years looking for ammonia, "and we never saw it". He claims that Formisano could not have seen ammonia, because the Mars Express instrument does not have enough resolving power to distinguish ammonia from carbon dioxide.

[nightdriver]

If there was any ammonia in the atmosphere of Mars, the little Viking (?) lab must have missed it and/or it is insignificant.

From the Mars atmospheric data:

Major : Carbon Dioxide (CO2) - 95.32% ; Nitrogen (N2) - 2.7% Argon (Ar) - 1.6%; Oxygen (O2) - 0.13%; Carbon Monoxide (CO) - 0.08%

Minor (ppm): Water (H2O) - 210; Nitrogen Oxide (NO) - 100; Neon (Ne) - 2.5; Hydrogen-Deuterium-Oxygen (HDO) - 0.85; Krypton (Kr) - 0.3; Xenon (Xe) - 0.08

No ammonia is even mentioned.

[GretchenM]

Ammonia may have been found in Mars' atmosphere which some scientists say could indicate life on the Red Planet.

Yeah, but what kind of life would that be?

"Darling, smell the evening air through our gorgeous red haze of a sunset, so fragrant, all ammonia and rock dust. Inhale, sweet one, and ... remember this magic moment forever."

Gack!

[TomasUSMC]

Results from NASA’s Spirit and Opportunity rovers are being looked over by a legion of planetary experts, including a scientist who remains steadfast that his experiment in 1976 proved the presence of active microbial life in the topsoil of Mars.

"All factors necessary to constitute a habitat for life as we know it exist on current-day Mars," explained Gilbert Levin, executive officer for science at Spherix Incorporated of Beltsville, Maryland.

Levin made his remarks here Monday at the International Symposium on Optical Science and Technology, the 49th annual meeting of Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE).

Provocative find

Levin has a long-standing interest in time-weathered Mars and the promise of life today on that distant and dusty world.

NASA’s 1976 Viking mission to Mars was geared-up to look for possible martian life. And it was Levin’s Labeled Release experiment that made a provocative find: The presence of a highly reactive agent in the surface material of Mars.

Levin concluded in 1997 that this activity was triggered by living microorganisms lurking in the martian soil – a judgment he admits has not been generally accepted by the scientific community.

Now roll forward to 2004. Consider the findings of Spirit and Opportunity, the golf-cart sized robots wheeling over Mars at Gusev Crater and Meridiani Planum.

"Those rovers have been absolutely sensational, pouring out thousands of images. Those images have lots of information in them. And I’ve tried to deduce something in there relative to life…and I think I found a lot," Levin told SPACE.com.

Squeezed out of the soil

In perusing rover imagery, Levin reports there is clear evidence for liquid water existing under Martian environmental conditions. "The images should be reviewed against the background of surface temperatures as varying from below to above freezing reported by both Spirit and Opportunity," he explained.

Levin points to the potential for mud puddles on Mars, showing an image of clearly disturbed martian soil after rover airbags bounced across Mars’ surface. Possible standing water and sinkholes can also be seen in rover imagery, according to his analysis. In some pictures, the often-discussed "blueberries, " tiny spheres of material, disappear as if submerged underneath mud-like surroundings, he added.

Then there are tracks left by the machines as they roll across the martian terrain. Self-taken shots by the robots show what Levin said appears to be water squeezed out of the soil which then freezes into a whitish residue left in embedded tread marks.

Similarly, Levin added, are images taken by Opportunity of the results from an operation of the robot’s Rock Abrasion Tool, or RAT. The center of that particular RAT hole is largely white, possibly indicating the formation of frost since the hole was drilled, he noted.

Organisms there now?

[dfwgator]

Better have this ready just in case.

[biblewonk]

I always feed my garden and pet spiders ammonia.