Mars: ALH84001

These images and lots of good discussion about the arguments for and against this evidence stemming from life on Mars can be found at Allan Tremaine's web site and particularly his Recent Scientific Papers on ALH84001 Explained, with Insightful and Totally Objective Commentaries.

Basically, the evidence lines up like this. It is presently impossible to prove that the signatures detected in the rock do NOT correspond to life.

However, many people have shown alternate interpretations for each of the individual pieces of evidence that McKay et al. put together to derive their conclusion of relic life. Several of the issues people are questioning are how hot the rock was heated (the mineral composition depends on this); if you can make the organic molecules non-biogenically; whether there was any terrestrial contamination (either in Antarctica or in the lab); how big are the smallest bacteria on Earth; and other issues.

The summaries given on Allen Tremain's web page are quite good and not technical, and this would make a fascinating term paper topic for someone (to examine both sides of the issue and compare the arguments).

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