Posted By Saruman on Wednesday, November 20 2002

Subject: Did Life Form In Martian Impact Craters ?

Mars may be smaller than Earth, but it’s still huge to a roving spacecraft that can cover only 100 meters a day. For that reason, Mars mission planners must go to great lengths to find landing sites that might still carry evidence that life once existed on Mars.

A key zone of speculation exists just beneath Mars’ cold, dry, dusty and inhospitable surface – where two prerequisites for life, water and heat, may be found. Such heat may come from volcanism, and indeed Olympus Mons is the largest volcano in the solar system.

Asteroid impacts (most likely in the first half-billion years of the solar system but conceivably even today) are a second possibility. When a big piece of rock crashes into Mars at about 5 kilometers per second, could that liberate enough heat to melt underground ice, drive the circulation of liquid water, and perhaps allow the formation or survival of life?

Click Here To Read The Complete Article......

i know one of the scientists that will be in control of the rover when it lands- he was my astronomy professor. he is quite a character and i learned a lot from him. mostly he discussed this mission to mars- because he spent so much time working on it. he often missed classes because he was in the mojave desert testing his skills with the rover. he designed a spectrometer that would detect life if it exists. the group is looking into areas where they believe the highest likelihood of water being found would be. the reason they are choosing impact craters is because there is proof (from satellites at least) that a liquid was formed in the heat of the impact and there are channels where it flowed away. they hope the liquid was water and that it might hold life. if you want to learn more about this mission, here is a link to the mission site.

http://athena.cornell.edu/