Posted by tourdemars to Life on Mars at March 8, 2004 12:31 PM

People have imagined Mars as an abode of life for so long — centuries at least, probably much longer — that NASA’s recent self-styled “significant” announcement of strong evidence for liquid water long ago was, let’s face it, pretty ho-hum to both space enthusiasts and the general public. So where did the breathless Internet rumors come from? Where was the evidence for current water, such as brine springs? Are those microscopic threads really just debris from the airbags, and if so, why do they seem to keep appearing even as Spirit moves farther away from the landing site? And aside from the junk that the two rovers brought with them and strewed across the landscape (didn’t the NASA science team expect to be confused by some of that?), are there any other shapes seen in the images that look, well, organic?