The saga that began at NASA's surprising press conference in 1996 continued several years later - and this time the pendulum is tipping in favor of the sides of life on Mars
Researchers from the NASA center in the USA claimed tonight that they found proof of the existence of primitive life that existed in the past on the planet Mars. According to them, an examination of a meteorite originating from a star shows that only a type of bacteria could have created the patterns found in it.
In examining the meteorite, whose age is estimated at 3.9 billion years, tiny magnetic crystals were found. On Earth, the only source for creating such crystals, of the magnetite type (a type of iron oxide), is a type of bacteria that produce the crystals.
In the NASA announcement, it was stated that chains of magnetite crystals were found in the meteorite, which could only have been formed by living organisms. "The origin of the chains we discovered is biological," said Imri Friedman from the space agency. "Each magnetite crystal in the chain is a microscopic magnet, and they are linked to each other like pearls on a string," he added.
The meteorite landed on Earth 13 thousand years ago, in the Antarctic region, where it remained buried in ice until its discovery in 1984.
In 96, scientists for the first time raised the possibility that it is possible to conclude from the block of rock, which is the size of a potato, about the existence of microscopic life on Mars, and since then its examination has begun.
