Mars (Page 19)

Are crop circles coded messages from aliens? – Bulgaria says they are in touch with aliens who, in response to a set of 30 questions their scientists sent to them, have replied with a complex set of symbols that their experts are hard at work trying to decipher. And what are these “complex symbols?” Crop circles! (NOTE: Subscriberscan still listen to this show). Also, NASA believes there is life on Mars because of the bacteria-like fossil forms on a meteorite from Mars that hit the Earth 13,000 years ago.
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Do they destroy it too? – Robot landers that were sent to Mars to search for life may actually have destroyed it.

In New Scientist, David Shiga reports that NASA’s Phoenix lander found chemicals called perchlorates in the Martian soil. When heated, these release oxygen and thus cause nearby material to burn (which is why they are used in rocket fuel). The heat from the Mars lander may have heated the perchlorates in the soil and burned away any life forms there before the lander could detect them.
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?and maybe live there ourselves someday – On Mars, NASA has found both methane gas and rocks that contain carbonates. Why is this important? The rocks show that the water on Mars is not too acidic to support life?otherwise, carbonates couldn’t form. And the methane could be a byproduct of plant decay, meaning that life is already there.
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NASA’s Phoenix Lander spacecraft has collected a soil sample and had studied it in a chemistry lab on board the lander. NASA says they have discovered water in the soil.

This answers a major question about Mars: is the ice that is on the planet made of carbon dioxide or water? BBC News quotes NASA?s William Boynton as saying that this is the first time that Mars water has been “touched and tasted.” This finding paves the way for future colonization of the Red Planet.
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