« Elliot Gould | Main | Greenwald on Anthraxgate » Moving to Mars?Aviation Week says NASA's alerted the White House about plans to announce Phoenix lander evidence that Mars may be habitable. International news media trumpeted the water ice confirmation, which was not a surprise to any of the Phoenix researchers. "They have discovered water on Mars for the third or fourth time," one senior Mars scientists joked about the hubbub around the water ice announcement. No hint of organics on Mars, but if it's habitable, I wouldn't be surprised to see colonization plans on the drawing boards. jon posted this at 5:50 PM |
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How many times have we heard that there is water on Mars possibly making it habitable. There must be more to it surely otherwise these announcements wouldn't continue to be made.
What is interesting is that In February 2005, it was announced that the Planetary Fourier Spectrometer (PFS) on the European Space Agency's Mars Express Orbiter, detected traces of formaldehyde in the atmosphere of Mars. Vittorio Formisano, the director of the PFS, has speculated that the formaldehyde could be the byproduct of the oxidation of methane, and according to him, would provide evidence that Mars is either extremely geologically active, or harbouring colonies of microbial life. NASA scientists consider the preliminary findings are well worth a follow-up, but have also rejected the claims of life.
What does this mean for us? Maybe colonization more than an idle fantasy.
Posted by: Ash | November 16, 2008 4:32 AM