Exploration Rover Spirit got stuck in a pile of red planet mud... where there is mud there might be life...

Scientist believe that they have found new evidence of life on mars after the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit got stuck in a pile of red planet mud. Scientists believe that the discovery shows that water formed on the planet more recently than previously thought.

The Telegraph reports that scientists believed previously that water formed on mars more than a billion years ago. But the new Mars mud has changed that thought, and now it is believed that water may have formed as recently as a few thousand years ago.

The Nasa team, who are based at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said:

“On Earth … hydrothermal systems provide the environmental conditions, water, nutrients and energy sources


needed to sustain robust microbial communities. It seems likely the region (on Mars) … may have likewise supported a habitable environment.”

The Mars Exploration Rover Spirit got stuck last April. The rover broke through the surface crust of Mars, and got stuck in a soft sand below. The incident provided clues that Mars may still be wet.



Read The Full Story: Life on Mars? Rover Gets Stuck in Red Planet Mud

Researchers at the American space agency made the discovery after the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit became stuck in wet ground on the red planet earlier this year.

Astronomers have become excited by the latest discovery, which they say proves that water favourable for life formed on the red planet more recently than previously thought.

Nasa’s latest study, reported in the Journal of Geophysical Research, concluded the liquid likely formed from melting snow, which then trickled into the subsurface and dissolved.

It contained several minerals including hematite, silica and gypsum while ferric sulphates, which are more soluble, also were carried down by the water.

None of these minerals are exposed at the surface, which is covered by windblown sand and dust.

“On Earth … hydrothermal systems provide the environmental conditions, water, nutrients and energy sources needed to sustain robust microbial communities,” concluded the Nasa team, who are based at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.

“It seems likely the region (on Mars) … may have likewise supported a habitable environment.”

According to Nasa, the Mars explorer became stuck in April last year when its left wheels broke through the surface’s crust called “Troy” and fell into soft sand below.

The soil exposed by Spirit’s spinning wheels carries clues that Mars may still be wet.

The seepage could have happened during cyclical climate changes in periods when Mars tilted farther on its axis.

"Liquid water and life kind of go together," said Ray Arvidson, of Washington University in St. Louis, who was involved in the project.

Nasa abandoned plans to extract the rover earlier this year

Don't Be Sad for Mars Rover, Celebrate a Robotic Life Fully Lived

By David Bois Wednesday, January 27, 2010 10:16 AM ET

NASA confirms that Mars Spirit rover, stuck since spring, may not come back from the hibernation command it is issuing as Martian winter approaches. It's had an amazing six year run, so sadness is far less appropriate than celebration.

We knew that this day was coming. The impending sense that we would soon have to say goodbye has lingered for months.

But in spite of the potential for sadness on this occasion, the end of the red dusty road for the Mars Rover Spirit must be embraced as a cause for celebration. If there were New Orleans-style jazz funerals for space gadgets, this would be the perfect occasion, and I'd be the first to assemble my saxophone and step into marching formation with the band.

It's so very tempting to think it would have wanted it that way. Stuck in loose soil since late spring, Spirit's continued ability to grab great data even though immobile — which amazingly included sending back smoking-gun evidence of Martian water uncovered by the very spinning of its mired wheel — hinted that the gadget might somehow have been imbued through programming with the human characteristics of perseverance, optimism and determination.

Spirit thus begged to be anthropomorphized, to be seen as a real-world facsimile of the likes of Pixar's Wal-E. Designed with the hope that both it and its companion rover Opportunity would each stay operative for a 90 day mission, these space buggies are among NASA's most smashing successes, having been on the job for six years.

But as news reports via Wired, BBC and others confirm, NASA has announced that they are powering Spirit down while enough power remains on board to receive and process one last instruction to go into hibernation mode from which return to activity is not impossible, but described as unlikely.

BBC reports that project scientists are positioning the rover so that its array of solar panels will be positioned to receive the most possible solar energy into the batteries during the approaching Martian winter. Temperatures are expected to plummet to about minus 60 Fahrenheit, which will push the design tolerance for cold that Spirit was designed to withstand under the best and straight-out-of-showroom conditions.

As quoted by BBC, NASA scientist and director of Mars exploration Doug McCuistion sums up the rover's drawn-out predicament, and wants us to buck up:

"Spirit has encountered a golfer's worst nightmare — the sand trap that no matter how many strokes you take, you can't get out of it. But this is not a day to mourn Spirit; this is not a day of loss at this point. Spirit will continue to make contributions to science."

Without a doubt: The information that Spirit and Opportunity have sent back to Earth has led to more than 100 journal papers, with untold findings still to be gleaned from the mountain of data.

Godspeed, little rover. Come back and say hello later on if you're able. But if not, you sure did good.

And you won't be forgotten