- BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungarian
scientists claimed on Friday to have found evidence of living organisms
on Mars after analyzing 60,000 photographs taken by the Mars Global Surveyor
probe.
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- The three-man team said the pictures showed evidence
of thousands of dark dune spots, similar to organisms found near Earth's
South Pole, in craters in Mars' snowy southern polar region.
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- ``These spots indicate that on the surface below the
ice there are such organisms which, absorbing solar energy, are able to
melt the ice and create conditions of life for themselves,'' biologist
and team member Tibor Ganti told Reuters.
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- During harsh Martian winters, when temperatures plummet
to minus 328 Fahrenheit, these so-called Mars Surface Organisms are protected
by a thick blanket of ice which then melts as the planet's early summer
temperatures climb to just above zero.
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- Large gray dark dune spots -- with a diameter ranging
from 30 feet to several hundred yards -- are left behind.
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- These, the Hungarians claim, are dried-out organisms
which can reactivate themselves once the colder, icy season sets in again.
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- ``The same mechanisms can be found on Earth in ice covering
lakes at the South Pole. The question is whether harsh Martian conditions
allow this mechanism to work there as well,'' Ganti said.
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- Agustin Chicarro, one of the leaders of the European
Space Agency's (ESA) Mars Express program, which plans to launch a Mars
probe in 2003, recently visited Hungary to follow up the team's findings.
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- ``We make proposals (to the ESA) on where and what sort
of measurements should be made and when, how and what should be photographed,''
Ganti said, adding that no final ESA decision had been taken yet on Hungarian
participation in the next probe.
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- Ganti said that if the Hungarian team, also involving
biologist Eors Szathmary and astronomer Andras Horvath, was right, this
could be the first real proof of life on Mars.
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- ``This would be life. These would be living organisms
and this would be the first find of living organisms on another planet,''
he said.
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