Mars Rover Opportunity Finds Life-Friendly Niche 55
astroengine writes "Gale Crater, the region being explored by NASA's Curiosity rover, isn't the only place on Mars where ancient microbes may have thrived. New evidence from NASA's senior robotic Mars scout, Opportunity, shows life-friendly water once mixed with telltale, clay-bearing rocks that now lie on the broken rim of Endeavour Crater, an ancient 14-mile wide basin on the other side of the planet from Gale. 'If I were to go Mars early in time and wanted to do a well, I'd do it there,' planetary scientist Ray Arvidson, with Washington University in St. Louis, told Discovery News. 'It's like drinking water. This would have been a niche for whatever life at the time existed.'"
Re:So, when are we going to send tunnel-bots? (Score:5, Informative)
Right. the LAND area of Mars and Earth are close.
Land area of Earth 148 million km.
Surface area of Mars 144.8 million km
So our sample to date is pretty miserable.
However, our samples to date agree with out space based observations. Both on earth and on mars. We don't have to turn over every rock.
We need rovers that can get to some more risky locations. http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap03... [nasa.gov]