Life on Mars still fantasy

Ten years ago NASA has announced the discovery of life on Mars. “If the results are verified,” Carl Sagan pronounced, “it is a turning point in human history.” But until today, the results have not been verified. Skeptics have found nonbiological explanations for every piece of evidence presented in August 1996.

It is still science fiction to claim that living organisms ever actually existed on Mars. The Viking probes of the mid-1970s carried experiments designed to detect microorganisms in Martian soil at their respective landing sites, and had some positive results, later disputed by many scientists, resulting in a continuing fight. In the Johnson space center lab organic compounds have been found in the asteroid ALH84001, which is supposed to come from Mars. They said that they were deposited by primitive life forms before the meteorite was blasted into space and sent on a 15 million-year voyage to Earth. The small quantity of methane in martian atmospher is allso claimed to be a hint for life.