NASA scientists have found strong evidence that microbes once lived on Mars, and may still do so right now, British tabloid The Sun reports. The evidence consists of a haze of methane in the Martian atmosphere. Professor Colin Pillinger, a Mars expert from the UK, says NASA will announce this discovery later today. The methane is believed to be a waste product from microbes living—or having lived—in large underground water reservoirs. No other features on Mars are known that would produce methane in the observed quantities.

If this story is confirmed, it would be a huge find: the first strong evidence that we are not alone in the universe. Even if our neighbours are just a bunch of methane-burping microscopic lifeforms, it would be one of the biggest discoveries in history. So, keep an eye out for any news coming from NASA today…

Update: NASA did indeed report on the discovery of Martian methane, but (quite expectedly) they don’t go as far as to say that this is strong evidence for life on the Red Planet. The methane might well have a geological origin, rather than a biological one. Nevertheless, it’s an important step in our ongoing quest of finding signs of life outside the Earth.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 15:01 and is filed under Science: Astronomy, Science: General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.