Translate

Showing posts with label ALH 84001. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ALH 84001. Show all posts

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Good omens in the search for antique life on Mars


Structure in the meteorite ALH 84001.The tiny piece of carbon found in meteorites from Mars were formed by the cooling of volcanic emission, were not left there by ancient space germs. This is good news and bad news for astrobiologists.
The discovery in 1996 of carbonate structures in the meteorite ALH 84001, which traveled from Mars to Earth 13,000 years ago, was hailed at the time as evidence that extraterrestrial microbes have ever lived on the Red Planet. However, further studies of both the carbonate structures as tiny bits of macromolecular carbon (MMC) in the meteorite cast doubt on those claims.