|
Credit & Copyright: D. McKay
(NASA
/JSC),
K. Thomas-Keprta
(Lockheed-Martin),
R. Zare
(Stanford),
NASA
Explanation:
Alien! Alien?
Is this what an ancient
Martian looked like? The tube-like form on the above
highly magnified
image is now believed by many to be
a fossil of a
simple Martian organism
that lived over
3.6 billion years
ago.
If this extraordinary claim is true, this alien
could hardly have been less intimidating as its fossil measures
less than 1/100th the width of a
human hair. A reconstruction of events
indicates that
the meteorite that housed this potential
fossil was catapulted from Mars
during a
huge impact 16 million years ago and fell to
Earth's
Antarctica only 13,000 years ago.
Evidence supporting
this claim of early
Martian life includes organic molecules and mineral
features characteristic
of biological activity found in the meteorite.
NASA's current
missions to Mars are
Mars Global Surveyor and
Mars Pathfinder.
Though not designed to look for martian fossils, these missions may
reveal information about
conditions on early Mars which might have
been more favorable for life.
|
January February March April May June July August September October November December |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: ancient
Publications with words: ancient
See also: