If I were a mineralogist or chemist then there would be something to cheer about but from what I know about the early sea on Earth is that it was not very salty or full of oxygen which is why life developed so slowly here.

If fossils of microscopic organisms were possible then the same would be true for finding such life here on Earth but as far as I know anything that small is usually trapped inside of amber from the ancient forests that we have found thus far.

Personally, I am thrilled to read the news about Mars. I have written, requested, and received 3 NASA Grants to build a small robotic Red Rover and a Marscape in my classroom that is interactive over the Internet. I have followed the news about Mars for several years, and have participated in Internet projects with my students that are space based. We have built five small mirrors for the StarShine Satellite programs, and several other endeavors. I couldn't be more pleased to see the progress we have made on Mars. I just wish that I could live long enough to see, and possibly visit, human discoveries on Mars. I find this very inspiring for myself, and my students.

This sounds like you are a great instructor and that you are also very talented.

The news was good but how it was publized was as far as I am concerned was over kill for what was announced.

The real test for NASA scientist with the Mars Rovers is in proving life did exist, if it had the chance to develope before Mars became unihabitable.
This I feel would accelerate the SEI programs and get us to Mars much sooner than the 2035 to 2040 range if the budgets hold true for the expense of doing such a large undertaking. Due for lack of the CEV module that is still 8 to 10 years away.

Yes great news, confirms a few things but I think titling this release as major was an overkill indeed.

They should learn not to set public expectations so high.

The code word brine is used a lot and it only tells me they are holding back on revealing that there is MUD which denotes existing underground acuifers that may rise during the day and cause the MUDDY soil.

They will continue to hold back so more funding is established for another mission.

I am watching the NASA TV and one small hint was given away about the brine dissolving/evaporating through an ice surface will produce pure drinking water.

does nt it feel as though we are coming out of the dark ages of martian exploration into the golden age . my hunch is that life proberbly did exist on mars and proberbly survives there in isolated pockets today . lets hope someone gets to go there in the next 30 years ,because i think its going to take a person on the ground to resolve the matter and barring a probe to europa finding something , its proberbly the best chance of finding evidence of extra terrestrial life .definatly a step closer to resolving the ultimate question .

Is there any place on Earth that we might simulate the gravity/ atmospheric pressure and under a controled process engineer plants for use on the ISS as well as Mars, if and once we are able to go.

Meridiani is fascinating. I think that there is much more to see and surely they didn't tell us everything they knew today. For example they were so quiet about the ferrules. This might be the next punch.

If you look at today’s third microscopic image (2.5 MB) you may see (I am not a geologist) that the rock is built around them. What they were telling us so far was that most likely they were result of mineralization inside cavities. It seems more to me that those things were layered in the rocks and the sediments enveloped around them. Is out there a specialist to comment?

It is not possible to simulate an alternate gravitational accelleration on the surface of the earth. Even if you were to create a centrifuge on the surface, it would not properly simulate gravitational acceleration. The only way to simulate martian gravity, long term - i.e. longer than 20-45 seconds, is to do it in orbit with a rotating body.

I see by the side bar that the x-43 scramjet hydrogen (air)oxygen engine is being readied for a saturday test flight. Has there been any thought into using this technology with other fuel types possibly Kerosene in the first stage with lox assist to start followed by the rest of the flight being powered by incoming air.

The discovery news article thinks that the EArth cooled before Mars. Last time I checked objects closest to a heat source cool last. So how could have Earth possibly seeded Mars. I think if any it may be the other way around with different chemical compounds that were not forming naturally here on Earth quite possibly.

7 Billion years ago, a larger red giant star imploded and exploded. The vast amount of material from this event added dust grains to a nebula cloud. 5.5-6 Billion years ago, gravity began to cause tidal actions and material began to clump together. From the nebula, several stars came into being, our sun, the alpha centuri group, and a few others. By 4.5-4.8 billion years ago, this solar system and the Centuri group had formed--excluding Proxima Centuri.
At 4.2-4.3 Billion years, the moon formed from an impact of a planetisimal on the early Earth.
At 3.87 Billion years, the first bacteria.
If the bacteria came from Mars, could it possibly have arrived on a comet from the Alpha Centuri system (Sedna orbit?) or could have this bacteria existed in a frozen state on a comet from the initial red giant that added material to a dust cloud over 6-7 billion years ago?
Either way, life began an evolutionary process.
Dust to Dust, Ashes to Ashes, we are all made of star stuff--so reach to the stars. That is what I tell my great neices and nephews, when they ask about the future. Simple and elegant, they can understand that.

I feel that Nasa is feeling the need to report smaller finding to justify the expense of the two rovers which cost over $280 million dollars.I have been very interested at the possibility of discovering life on mars. I have tracked it from the very beggining when spirit landed, and desperately waited for the arrival of opportunity.Lately I have personally dubbed the rovers "missed opportunity" and "diminishing spirit." I feel it is greatly justified because NASA is stringing us along like sheep."oooh" and "Ahhhh." Big F%cking deal. GO EXPLORE CYDONIA!!!!! Instead they are wasting the tax payers money by taking a joy ride in the middle of the galactic desert. From my knowledge cydonia offers way more in the feilds of scientific controversy and promising data.Not to mention puting to rest alot of unanswered questions.One more thing.Why dont you use that suite of tools on the rovers and get your head out of your ass and look in greater depth of the Flying Object that was so breifly mentioned in the martian sky. You Wont Nasa!!!! Its not important to you!!!! And by the way, thanks alot for the beefed up news briefing. I thought maybe you had found something important for a second :}

A NASA Tip of the Hat to Richard Hoagland, whose paper "Mars Tidal Model" pretty much predicted what NASA is now confirming would have been nice. Considering that recently Robert Britt on Space.com and The Bad Astronomer have ganged up on Hoagland --and NASA sat there quietly and let them-- it would be nice for someone to say:
hey, you know what, Hoagland was right about this!

J Weikle at March 24, 2004 11:45 AM

That was a great story and had some lovely notions attached to it.
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The universe is bound with many mysteries to yet resolve and probably will always remain this way.

Sedna has just added a new mystery to our own backyard and adds a new dimension to the very existence and birth of our solar system. Sedna could of only got into the orbit she is in now by a proto-planetary disk ejection from a birth star or from another system where white or brown dwarfs exist in the Ort cloud.

So here we are still trying to understand some of the basic fundamentals of creation in so many places, including that all so enticing Martian system.

I have no doubt that there is/was life on Mars and Earth is one of the last in this massive evolutionary chain of life events.