Did a Meteorite Finally Reveal Life on Mars?

The first rule of Mars life is.... Don't talk about Mars life. Hi everyone, I'm Ian O'Neill, space producer for Discovery News and I've commandeered the DNews video studio to share some news that, well, kinda flew under everyone's radar. In case you didn't notice by all the rovers and satellites we have orbiting Mars, we are fascinated with the Red Planet. We can't live there without a spacesuit because the air is too thin and the planet is bathed in radiation. But it's the closest thing we have to Earth in the whole solar system. There's been a recent flurry of science results from NASA's Mars rovers. These results suggest that not only was Mars once a very wet world, the water existed in a liquid state and was pH-neutral, or safe to drink. So when you collect all the evidence, it's not such a stretch of the imagination to think that basic lifeforms, like single-celled microbes, once mingled in the Mars rock and soil millions of years ago. The next step would be to send a robot (or even humans) to the surface of Mars to collect a sample of rock and launch it back to Earth. That way geologists and astrobiologists can analyse the samples to look for ancient fossils of microbes. But nature is already one step ahead. Mars, like every planet in the solar system, is smashed by asteroids and some of the Martian impacts have been so energetic that chunks of the Martian crust have been blasted into space. After drifting for possibly millions of years, these rocks may fall to Earth as meteorites. We know of hundreds of Mars meteorite examples and these precious commodities have been studied. This pretty cool concept has led to the hypothesis of "panspermia," where life may hitch a ride on meteorites and spread from planet to planet like highly infectious interplanetary ***.... but that's a whole other story. Anyway, back to these new results... In February, NASA scientists published a paper discussing tiny tunnels and holes inside a 30 pound Mars meteorite. They say these structures are similar to "bio-alteration textures" in glasses found on Earth formed by terrestrial microorganisms. They use terms like "biogenic origins" and "biotic activity" -- but at no point the researchers mention the word "life." You'd expect every tabloid paper in the world to have this splashed across their front pages. But the news just kinda sailed by. Other scientists praised NASA researchers for avoiding speculative comments about finding signs of life on Mars. Just because this particular meteorite has features that may have been created by tiny Martians doesn't mean that they were. This is science at its finest. While this is tantalizing evidence for life on Mars, more studies are needed. And probably the only way that we will get proof is when we can analyze a microbe's DNA, which is probably good enough reason for humans to finally set foot on Mars carrying a microscope and forensics kit. Are you as excited by this finding as I am? Let us know in the comments below and be sure to subscribe to DNews for more science videos every day of the week.