"Each group has independently discovered tantalising evidence of methane in the Martian atmosphere. Methane, a waste product of living organisms on Earth, could also be a by-product of alien microbes living under the surface of the Red Planet."
Unexplained tree-like formations on Mars.
This could signal the end of NASA/JPL's cult-like insistence that Mars is lifeless. The "Life on Mars" meme is gathering evidential moss on a near-daily basis.
So what if life (or its unmistakable signature) is discovered and recognized for what it is? Either NASA and the European space agency will begin serious proposals for a near-term manned mission or else the next generation of rovers will be equipped for on-site biological analysis. Either way, the current sterile milieu will be forced to adapt. And JPL as we know it will cease to exist as exobiologists, ecologists and microbiologists gain much-deserved control over NASA's geology-driven Mars exploration program.
(It's a safe prediction that if we make it out of the next few hundred years alive and intact, all of this furor over Martian life will seem quite amusing.)
More Mars fun:
God's creatures on Mars?
"Scholars with expertise in science and religion contend that the major religions practiced on Earth are elastic enough to account for intelligent life on other planets. But thinking through the possibilities could be an important exercise in getting followers of different religions to see how they can coexist."
Tell that to the boneheads who wrote the Brookings Report . . .
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