Requiem for life on Mars? Support for microbes fades
Kerr, R.A.
Science 282(5393): 1398-1400
1998
ISSN/ISBN: 0036-8075 PMID: 9867639 Document Number: 486421
Few scientists now support the case for signs of microbes in the Martian meteorite ALH84001. In the August 16, 1996, Science, a team led by geologist David McKay of the Johnson Space Center in Houston suggested that spheroidal and tubular objects found in cracks in ALH84001 could be fossilized extraterrestrial microbes. Since then, ALH84001 has attracted $2.3 million in funding from NASA and the National Science Foundation. At a recent NASA workshop in Houston, Texas, however, scientists concluded that the research has weakened central parts of the original case, leading most researchers to concur that the case for life is more doubtful than ever. McKay and colleagues still assert that the meteorite contains evidence for primitive life on early Mars, but paleontologists and mineralogists say inorganic deposition can have such lifelike forms that shape alone proves little.