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Life

White meteorites from Mars may hide evidence of life

1 October 2008

EVIDENCE of life on Mars may have already arrived on Earth, hidden inside white meteorites made of sedimentary rock. That’s the new hope, at least.

So far, all meteorites from Mars have been made of volcanic rock. But sedimentary rock, laid down in ancient Martian oceans, may be the best place to look for evidence of alien life, since water is a life-friendly environment.

To see if such sedimentary meteorites could even survive the trip to Earth, Frances Westall and colleagues at the European Space Agency’s STONE-6 project glued two sedimentary rocks containing fossils and other life signatures to the…

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