Ancient Mars Could Have Supported Life

sighted writes "NASA is announcing that analysis of a rock sample collected by the Curiosity rover shows ancient Mars could have supported living microbes. Scientists identified sulfur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and carbon in the powder Curiosity drilled out of a sedimentary rock near an ancient stream bed in Gale Crater last month. The announcement quotes Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program: 'A fundamental question for this mission is whether Mars could have supported a habitable environment. From what we know now, the answer is yes.'"

Comments

Re:Mars chose Austerity over Life

[ScentCone]

Ancient Mars decided to go down the Austerity path, and thus life never progressed and never got out of the dinosaur age.

Or, perhaps Mars decided it could borrow its way to prosperity and penalize its most successful life forms for being successful, and the desolate wasteland you now see is exactly what one might expect from that understanding of where prosperity comes from.

Yeah, two can play stupid insert-politics-into-everything games. But you shot first, Greedo.