Minerals found in the subsurface of Mars, a zone of more than three miles below ground, make for the strongest evidence yet that the red planet may have supported life (NOTE: Subscribers can still listen to this show).
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We told you it was coming and here it is: NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover has used its full array of instruments to analyze Martian soil for the first time, and found a complex chemistry there, including water, sulfur and chlorine-containing substances, some of which could indicate there may be primitive life there (NOTE: Subscribers can still listen to this show). The composition is about half common volcanic minerals and half non-crystalline materials such as glass.
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NASA has announced that one of the instruments on the Curiosity Rover has sent back some extraordinary data, but the transmission is still being checked to make certain that it is not a fluke, and so far the space agency has not made an official statement about what the instrument has detected.read more
The space rock called the Tissint meteorite, that landed in the Moroccan desert last year, (with a fireball and double sonic boom), was knocked off Mars (NOTE: Subscribers can still listen to this show) in a cosmic collision around 700,000 years ago. This means that the rock was flung into space and began its journey to Earth when the shared ancestors of modern humans and Neanderthals were still living in Africa.read more