Feb 18 2005
From The Space Library
NASA officially refuted news reports that had circulated on 16 February claiming that NASA scientists affiliated with ARC had found strong evidence that life might exist on Mars. According to the news reports, during a private meeting in Washington, DC, two astrobiologists from Ames had told a group of space officials that they had found strong evidence, in the form of methane signatures, that life currently exists on Mars, hidden in caves and sustained by pockets of water. NASA stated that it did not have any observational data from any current Mars missions to support the claim. NASA further stated that the work the scientists had conducted did not directly support any conclusion regarding the existence of life on Mars but, rather, that the scientists' research could help formulate a strategy for searching for such life. The scientists had not submitted any research papers asserting the existence of Martian life to any scientific journal. (NASA, “NASA Statement on False Claim of Evidence of Life on Mars,” news release 05-052, 18 February 2005, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2005/feb/HQ_05052_mars_claim.html (accessed 19 August 2009); Bloomberg News, “NASA Says Claims of Evidence of Current Life on Mars Are False,” 19 February 2005; Brian Berger, “Exclusive: NASA Researchers Claim Evidence of Present Life on Mars,” Space.com, 16 February 2005, http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mars_life_050216.html (accessed 28 August 2009).)
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