It looks like I have a feature for today after all. The reason I am featuring it will be noted in the first comment. This new analysis of a famous rock, Meteorite ALH84001, discounts one piece of evidence that some scientists thought supported the hypothesis of an early beginning for life on Mars. Excerpt: ALH84001 held tiny tubes of carbonate that some scientists saw as potential evidence of microbial life, though a biological origin for the structures has been discounted. On December 16, NASA announced another potential whiff of Martian life in the form of methane sniffed by the rover Curiosity. Carbonates can be deposited by living things that scavenge the minerals to build their skeletons, but that is not the case for the minerals measured by this team. The carbonate we see is not from living things, [UC San Diego project scientist Robina] Shaheen said. It has anomalous oxygen isotopes that tell us this carbonate is abiotic.
Posted on: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 15:42:19 +0000
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