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Report Suggests Mars Microbes Overlooked
Schulze-Makuch's research coincides with work being completed by a National Research Council panel nicknamed the "weird life" committee. The group worries that scientists may be too Earth-centric when looking for extraterrestrial life. The problem for scientists is that "you only find what you're looking for," said Penn State University geosciences professor Katherine Freeman, a reviewer of the NRC work.
A new NASA Mars mission called Phoenix is set for launch this summer, and one of the scientists involved said he is eager to test the new theory about life on Mars. However, scientists must come up with a way to do that using the mission's existing scientific instruments, said NASA astrobiologist and Phoenix co-investigator Chris McKay. He said the Washington State scientist's paper piqued his interest.
  The NASA Viking Lander is pictured in a Mars simulation laboratory in this undated file photo. Two NASA space probes that visited Mars 30 years ago may have stumbled upon alien microbes on the Red Planet and inadvertently killed them, a scientist theorizes in a paper released Sunday, Jan. 7, 2007. (AP Photo) (AP) 
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"Logical consistency is nice, but it's not enough anymore," McKay said.
Other experts said the new concept has a certain logic to it, but more work is needed before they are convinced.
"I'm open to the possibility that it could be the case," said astrobiologist Mitch Sogin of the Marine Biological Lab in Woods Hole, Mass., and a member of the National Research Council committee. But he cautioned against "just-so stories about what is possible."
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On the Net
American Astronomical Society: http:/
NASA's Phoenix mission: http:/
