Hot Rock: Martian Meteorite Sparks Lively Debate

摘要

A potato-sized chunk of rock from Antarctica is at center stage on the controversy about whether life ever existed on Mars. In this period our #1 paper is grabbing citations as researchers split into pro-life and no-life camps. According to #1, a martian meteorite 4.5 billion years old came into contact with water about 3.6 billion years ago, and from this interaction sprang biogenic activity which is memorialized in the meteorite. Several papers have challenged this conclusion, thus boosting the impact of #1 as measured by citations.