* Astronomy

What Arctic Rocks Say About Life in Mars Meteorite

In 1996, a research group led by Dave McKay of NASAs Johnson Space Centre claimed to have found evidence of fossilised life in a Mars meteorite. Not only did the shapes look like bacteria, but a form of magnetite (iron oxide) was found in the meteorite that, on Earth, is produced within the bodies of certain bacteria. The study also found tiny carbonate globules in the meteorite, which the scientists said likely formed by living organisms in the presence of liquid water.
Since their surprising announcement, other scientists have closely examined the Mars rock and concluded the microscopic shapes werent necessarily associated with life, and the different features in the meteorite all could have formed by non-biological processes.
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