Mars Scientists Ecstatic Over 'Fresh' Mars Rocks

摘要

With samples hand-carried from Mars still decades away, researchers are rushing to look for signs of life in the latest arrivals from the Red Planet, the Tissint meteorites seen blazing through the atmosphere over Morocco last July. "I'm throwing everything I have at" the meteorites, says microbiologist Andrew Steele of the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C. Just last week, a committee of meteorite experts associated with the Meteoriti-cal Society tentatively confirmed a martian origin for the meteorites. Meteorite dealers, who retrieved 7 kilograms of meteorites from the Moroccan desert in December, immediately shared samples with scientists in order to verify the meteorites' origin.