New Evidence For Ancient Life On Mars

siddesu writes in with "compelling" new data that chemical and fossil evidence of ancient microbial life on Mars was carried to Earth in a Martian meteorite. The finding is being highlighted by the same NASA team who made the initial discovery 13 years ago. Spaceflight Now has more details of the analysis.

Re:Mars origin

[wizardforce]

Can someone explain to me why the set of meteorites are considered more likely to have originated on Mars than from an impact on Earth itself?

Gas bubbles found in the meteorite have a composition that is very much like the atmosphere on Mars. The gas inclusions don't resemble those of Earth.

Re:Mars origin

[MichaelSmith]

TFA:

Scientists were able to trace the meteorite back to Mars, as its chemical composition matched the relative proportions of various gases measured in observations of the atmosphere of Mars made by the Viking spacecraft in the 1970s.

Re:Panspermia

[Tablizer]

what makes you think it won't be the other way around, that our environment will be hostile to the martian bacteria?

That could be true also. Hopefully at least we can study Mars life before we destroy it. Something tells me human curiosity will investigate Mars closer one way or another. We may already have contaminated Mars because early probes were not cleaned sufficiently by some accounts.