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<DIV class=OutlookMessageHeader dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Tahoma
size=2></FONT></DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2></FONT>From the <A
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/24/science/24MARS.html?ex=1080795600&en=81e6ee93e5a72161&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE">New
York Times</A>: Mars was once a much warmer, wetter place, with pools of
saltwater that sometimes flowed across the surface, scientists reported Tuesday.
Analyzing findings from sedimentary rocks explored by the rover Opportunity, the
scientists said the rocks now appeared to have formed under a shallow bed of
softly flowing water near a shoreline - not, as formerly seemed possible,
through seepage from underground. It was the first concrete evidence that water
might have flowed on the Martian surface, and it provided new hints that life
may have existed there. "We think Opportunity is now parked on what was once the
shoreline of a salty sea on Mars," Dr. Steven W. Squyres of Cornell University,
principal investigator for the science payload on the Opportunity and its twin
Mars exploration rover, Spirit, said at a news conference here at NASA
headquarters. "If we are correct in our interpretation, this was a habitable
environment," Dr. Squyres went on. <BR>From <A
href="http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/opportunity_sea_040323.html">Space.com</A>:
The discovery re-ignited enthusiasm over Mars as a potential well for biology,
at least in the past. (Researchers are unsure whether any life that ever
developed on Mars -- if it did -- could have endured into the present era, with
Mars being cold and dry.). Most scientists agree that finding signs of past or
present life will likely require sending human geologists or, in the near term,
sending a robot to bring back samples for study in laboratories on Earth.
Meridiani Planum is, for now, the best destination for such a mission, which
NASA has slated for launch sometime in the next decade.</DIV></BODY></HTML>