Interesting times. From universetoday.com (via Slashdot):

The White House is Briefed: Phoenix About to Announce “Potential For Life” on Mars
It would appear that the US President has been briefed by Phoenix scientists about the discovery of something more “provocative” than the discovery of water existing on the Martian surface. … Whilst NASA scientists are not claiming that life once existed on the Red Planet’s surface, new data appears to indicate the “potential for life” more conclusively than the TEGA water results. Apparently these new results are being kept under wraps until further, more detailed analysis can be carried out….

These new MECA results are, according to the Phoenix team, a little more complex than the water “discovery.” Scientists are keen to point out however, that this secretive news will in no way indicate the existence of life (past or present) on Mars; Phoenix simply is not equipped make this discovery. What it can do is test the Mars soil for compounds suitable to support life. The MECA instrument does have microscopes capable of resolving bacterial-scale life forms however, but this is not the focus of the forthcoming announcement, sources say.

They seem a bit desperate not to find evidence of life. Mustn’t upset anyone entitled to their own facts, I guess.

The likeliest scenario is that this will turn out to be evidence of some carbon-based compounds. That, together with the earlier evidence that the Martian soil at the Phoenix site has water and Earth-like pH all points toward increased probability that there was or is life on Mars.

It’s bacterial life, at most, but that would be huge. Vast. Impossible to overstate. Because it means one of two things: either that life generally appears when there is carbon-based chemistry in the presence of water, or that some bacteria can make it through space often enough to seed life wherever conditions support it. Or both.

Either way, it would mean that life is common in the universe, not rare.

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