Mars Rover Investigates Possibility of Ancient Microbial Life

Riding with Robots writes "The robotic geologist Spirit, now scurrying to reach a safe haven before the harsh Martian winter sets in, has found signs that explorers say point to hot springs or fumaroles in the Red Planet's distant past. That possibility is not only interesting geologically, but potentially biologically, since those kinds of environments on Earth teem with microbial life. Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, Opportunity continues its descent into a deep crater, where it has found other clues about the ancient waters of Mars."

Comments

Offtopic, but funny journalism.

[Technician]

From the article;

"Spirit and its twin rover Opportunity have remained on Mars for much longer than originally planned. "

I never knew they were ever planning on leaving Mars. ;-) I think the reporter should have said the rovers have functioned longer on Mars than originally planned.

Re:Offtopic, but funny journalism.

[shawnce]

The only way NASA could get the rovers to go in the first was by telling them that they would return home safely at the end of the mission. Of course that was a lie but sometimes you just have to lie to get things done (just don't let the rovers know this).

Re:Other Title

[Anonymous Coward]

To make it a true slashdot article... keep science & reason out of it too.

Ah, robots!

[Tatarize]

Yeah, as far as I'm concerned we should put those little robots any place we can. We should have a dozen on the moon and let people pay to control them. At the very least they'd make a great welcome party for the Chinese.

Re:Microbial life on Mars

[Anonymous Coward]

For future reference 1m makes for a handy alternative to 1000mm