Life on Mars – Visual investigation

and implications to planetary protection

Harry Rabb, Kirkkonummi, Finland, 2013-2022.
Updated 10th of October 2022.

Images on this book: NASA/JPL-Caltech, Hubble Space Telescope and ISRO/MOM

Abstract

On year 2013 the theory by Steven Benner, that life was born on Mars and carried to Earth by
meteorites, was widely promoted in news. If this theory would be correct then the evolution
process could have continued on Mars, when there was oceans. And maybe life adapted when
conditions on Mars got worse.

On this book we study images taken by NASA Mars rovers Curiosity and Opportunity, to see if
there are any signs of past or present life on Mars. Curiosity landed on Mars in August 2012
and Opportunity January 2004.

In this book there is about 270 objects presented for which we can ask the question:
Is this life or not, either past or present?
This book bases to material created to internet page: https://sites.google.com/view/astrobiology-from-mars which contains the latest
updates and sharpest images.

CONTENTS 11. Interpretation of the Mars rover images

1. Introduction 12. Curiosity, Darwin, Vikings and
2. Newberries - Spheres with structure Planetary Protection
3. Stromatolites and Microbialities  Curiosity and Charles Darwin, and writing
4. Microbes on Mars? between the lines
5. Objects resembling lichens  The Vikings 1976 - Evidence for Microbial
Life on Mars
6. Objects resembling fungi
 Chlorophyll and Fatty Acids observations
 Blueberries
 Visual Evidence for Life on Mars
 Pinnacle Island
 Planetary Protection and Ethics
7. Publications by Science Groups
13. More observations
 Perchlorate reducing bacteria and the
 Images from the orbit of Mars
biological potential of subsurface
 Ice, Water and Moisture
 Rock Varnish - Manganese coated rocks
 Wheels and Deck of Curiosity
 Methanogen microbes in simulated
Martian environment 14. Astropaleontology
 Lichens in simulated Martian environment 15. Colors in Mars
 Bio signatures on Mars 16. Epilogue: Mars – The Living Planet
 Organic compounds and Phosphate
 Special regions on Mars Appendix A: References
 Concepts of Life in The Contexts of Mars Appendix B: Image processing
 Dissolution cavities in stones Appendix C: Guidelines for visual search
 Mars Meteorites, Appendix D: Fermi paradox
Appendix E: Astrobiology conferences in
8. Fossils on Mars? Reno and Carlsbad
9. Esperance Appendix F: Perseverance at Jezero crater 2021
10. Other interesting objects on Mars
Introduction
Our Solar system was born 4.6 billion years ago. Below is link to a news article where chemist
Steven Benner tells that after birth of the solar system, the best place for the birth of life was the
planet Mars. The best conditions for forming the RNA-molecule were on Mars. The RNA
works with the DNA in our every cell. According to theory the life in form of Microbes,
including DNA and RNA, would have been transported to Earth with meteorites.

When an asteroid hits a planet it can kick off stones, carrying microbes, to space. And later
these stones, meteorites, can hit another habitable planet, like Earth. It has been estimated that
about 5 billion meteorites, originated from Mars, have been hitting Earth during 4 billion years.
After birth of Solar System Mars also cooled earlier than Earth, so the conditions were good for
birth of life in Mars much before the Earth. Read more:

Universe Today 30.8.2013: Are We Martians? Chemist’s New Claim Sparks Debate
European Planetary Science 13.8.2013: Could life have survived a fall to Earth?
Universe Today 29.7.2013: Is Life On Mars Related To Life On Earth?

After birth of the solar system Mars planet was warm planet with oceans, lakes and rivers
maybe for 1 to 3 billion years. Also the atmosphere of Mars was thicker. Mars has liquid water
even today. The water is mixed to soil and underground there is probably large reserves of
water. On equator the temperature on day can reach +20 degrees Celsius and at night -80
degrees.

Fig.1.1. Mars now and long time ago.

The temperature of surface soil can reach +36 degrees Celsius for several hours during day at
equator [63]. On polar caps the temperature is -120 degrees Celsius. The atmosphere pressure of
Mars is now 0.8% of Earth atmosphere. Atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide. The chemistry of
Mars and low atmospheric pressure keeps the Martian salty water liquid in temperature range -
70 degrees Celsius to +10 degrees Celsius [132,133]. That means that at equator of Mars the
water mixed in the soil is in liquid state almost all the time. Gravity on surface of Mars is 38%
of the gravity on Earth surface. There are occasional sandstorms. Year takes 686 days. The tilt
of rotation axis is 25 degrees. So there are yearly seasonal changes in weather conditions.

In springtime the water ice of polar cap melts and water vapor clouds bring moisture to middle
latitudes. After that large dark greenish areas appear in Mars. Those you can see in Hubble
space telescope images above. This phenomenon has been known and observed in Mars since
1800 century [ref.63, MARS The Living Planet]. In Hubble images I have marked with an arrow
the Schiaparelli crater near Sinus Meridiani, so that comparison of images becomes easier. You
can see that when the ice from south polar cap is small year 2005 the dark greenish areas cover
more widely the southern hemisphere. The variations are not caused only by the sandstorms.

If the RNA and life was born in Mars, as Steven Benner proposes, then probably the evolution
process would have continued also in planet Mars.

On this article we study pictures taken by NASA Mars rovers Curiosity, Opportunity and Spirit,
to see if there are any signs of past or present life on Mars. Curiosity landed on Mars in August
2012 and Opportunity and Spirit January 2004. We also check the results of science teams
which have tested Earth microbes and lichens on simulated conditions of Mars. We handle the
results of the first ever life detection experiment on Mars, the Viking 1976 mission Labeled
Release experiment by Gilbert V. Levin and Patricia Ann Straat. And we get to know the
planetary protection issues raised by Carl Sagan, Barry E.DiGregorio and John D. Rummel. The
theory by Steven Benner on life born on Mars and carried to Earth by meteorites is actually a
subset of Panspermia theories for which modern versions were developed by Sir Fred Hoyle
and Chandra Wickramasinghe.

Fig.1.2. Curiosity, Perseverance, Opportunity and Spirit

I started the systematic visual study of Mars rover images, one by one, year 2013. Time spent in
archives until 2017 is about 2000 hours. As a result of the study in this book there is about 270
objects presented for which we can ask the question: Is this life or not, either past or present?
Some of the objects have been presented earlier in NASA press releases, but most of the objects
have not been presented. The study presented here got major improvements when I started co-
operation with biologist Dr. Lyall Winston Small in October 2015. On year 2017 I was invited
to SoCIA 2018 astrobiology meeting in University of Nevada, Reno USA, to present this study
on 14th of April 2018. On 2019 my abstract Visual identification of Extant Martian life was
approved on the agenda of NASA organized conference in Carlsbad, New Mexico Mars Extant
Life: What’s Next?

Sol is the day of Mars, 24 hours 40 minutes. On this book I mention the Sol-x when a Mars
rover took the picture. With that information You can fetch the original picture from Curiosity
or Opportunity rover archives ( Curiosity , Perseverance, Opportunity , Spirit archives) , which
contain now over one million images. If there are hundreds of images on certain day, I have also
mentioned the exact time UTC to make finding easier. I tell also for the images the exact
archive identity which for Curiosity looks like 0304MH0265000016R0_DXXX, where 4 first
digits is Sol number. From this identity it is possible to create direct link to image in archive
like this:
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/msss/00304/mhli/0304MH0265000016R0_DXXX.jpg (MAHLI)
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/msss/00186/mcam/0186MR0927120000E1_DXXX.jpg (Mast Camera)
For Opportunity and Spirit both Sol number and identity are needed to form web-link, for
example Sol 88 Mast camera image 1P135994587ESF1409P2542L4M1 by Opportunity:
https://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mer/gallery/all/1/p/088/1P135994587ESF1409P2542L4M1.JPG
Example of Perseverance file names:
Mars_Perseverance_NLG_0002_0667130892_961ECM_N0010052AUT_04096_00_2I3J01
NGL = Navigation Left Green, 0002=Sol 2.

The images in this document have high resolution, so you can zoom into details. Below is
Opportunity view from Meridiani Planum, Sol 17, year 2004 and Curiosity view in Gale crater,
Sol-538, year 2012 and Perseverance view in Jezero crater 2021.

Fig.1.3. View from Meridiani Planum, Gale and Jezero crater.

Below is map of Mars with positions of Mars-landers. Blue areas are the ancient ocean floors.
Green areas are sea-shore. Red areas are high lands. Curiosity and Perseverance are still
working.

Fig.1.4.Mars landers on map.

Below is view from Phoenix lander in middle of ancient ocean, year 2008. The rocket engines
of Phoenix blew off 10 centimeters of sand. Under that a layer of ice was uncovered. Latest
studies show that the ice layer may be several hundred meters thick: H.Kurokawa 2014:
Thickness of Martian ground ice: Implication from multi-water-reservoir model.

On equator, the results by Curiosity show that the surface soil contains liquid water even today
(source: Morten Bo Madsen, April 2015: Mars might have liquid water ).

Fig.1.5 Phoenix lander 2008.

Newberries - Spheres with structure
In figure 2.1 is image of structural spheres, which Opportunity rover discovered 6.9.2012 (Sol
3064). Place is ancient river-bed, named Kirkwood in Endeavour crater. Eroded objects have
internal structure. Link to NASA news about these: Puzzling Little Martian Spheres That Don't
Taste Like 'Blueberries'. Opportunity Sol 3247 contains also these same objects. Note that these
spheres differ completely from small Blueberry spheres, which exists widely on Mars surface.

Fig.2.1. Newberries

Notice inside the spheres especially the two threaded extensions with small nodules at the other
end (images A, B and C). In images C, D and J we see a clear shell layer and a center in these
spheres. In spheres E and F we see a stem attaching these spheres to something. So these
spheres have quite complex structure. Can these fine internal details, which are repeated again
in another location, be result of random processes of nature? Or are we actually looking at
ancient fossilized life? These Spheres have been named Newberries and you can read more
about them in Opportunity science team publication: A.G. Fairén 2014: Hollowed spherules
identified with the MER Opportunity near and at Cape York, western rim of Endeavour crater,
Mars

Fig.2.2.Details of Newberries

If we conclude that the Newberries are ancient fossilized life, then, as the result of evolution
process, there are consequences for past and current life in Mars. If life was born in Mars, it
must have been first primitive microbial life. Microbes survive even in extreme conditions of
empty space [54]. And if there were microbes in early history of Mars then there are microbes
even today, since a planet like Mars has always had good conditions for microbes, for example
chemolithoautotrophs, in certain depth in underground soil. And the current conditions in soil at
equator of Mars are good for certain type of microbes [12, 18]. There is moisture and water
from 2 to 6 percent mixed in soil [41] and during daytime the soil temperature can be several
hours even +36 degrees Celsius [63]. And there is all needed elements for life [17]. So if we
think that Newberries are fossilized ancient life on Mars, then it is most probable that there is
microbial life on Mars even today.

If we think that the Newberries are ancient fossilized life, then it is obvious that they are
multicellular life and result of a longer evolution chain. Also it means that we could expect to
find other species in images of Mars rovers. As you go further in this article, you will find out
that this is the case.

It is notable that NASA scientists mandate the search of these kind of possible fossil structures
in article published in July 2014: D.J. Des Marais,NASA Ames Research Center 2014:
Concepts Of Life In The Contexts Of Mars. Direct quote: “..Seek evidence of possibly biogenic
physical structures, from microscopic (micronscale) to macroscopic (meter-scale), combining
morphological, mineralogical, and chemical information where possible.” Biogenic structure
is a structure produced by life process.
Another interesting article is in Astrobiology Magazine December 8 2014 by Elizabeth Howell:
How Did Life Become Complex, And Could It Happen Beyond Earth? In this article Frank
Rosenzweig, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Montana, does not rule out
development of multicellular life on Mars, Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moon Titan.

In ancient sea floor in Antoniadi crater there is interesting formations, looking like coral-reef.

Fig.2.3.Ancient reef on Antoniadi crater?

Stromatolites and Microbialities
Stromatolites are bacterial mats and colonies forming identifiable patterns. In Earth they have
existed starting 3.5 billion years ago. You can read more about them in articles Wikipedia:
Stromatolite and J. William Schopf 2007: Evidence of Archean life: Stromatolites and
microfossils. Note in the articles the patterns that stromatolites form in Earth and compare them
to images below. Microbialities are traces and patterns produced by microbial activity to
sediments.

The following science publications by Rizzo, Bianciardi, Farias and Cantasano are worth to
read:

- Vincenzo Rizzo, Nicola Cantasano, International Journal of Astrobiology, September 2016:

Structural parallels between terrestrial microbialites and Martian sediments: are all cases of
‘Pareidolia’?
- Vincenzo Rizzo,Maria Eugenia Farias, Nicola Cantasano, Daniela Billi, Manuel Contreras,
Francesca Pontenani, Giorgio Bianciardi, Cell Biology 2015:Structures/textures of living/fossil
microbialites and their implications in biogenicity. An astrobiological point of view
- Giorgio Bianciardi, Vincenzo Rizzo, Maria Eugenia Farias and Nicola Cantasano,
Astrobiology Outreach 2015: Microbialites at Gusev Crater, Mars.
- Vincenzo Rizzo and Nicola Cantasano 2009, International Journal of Astrobiology
8(4), Possible organosedimentary structures on Mars
-V.Rizzo and N.Cantasano 2011, Mem. S.A.It.Vol.82, 2011, Textures on Mars: evidences of a
biogenic environment.
-V,Rizzo,International Journal of Astrobiology, Cambridge University press, March 2020: Why
should geological criteria used on Earth not be valid also for Mars? Evidence of possible
microbialites and algae in extinct Martian lakes.

The method by Rizzo, Bianciardi and Cantasano has been mathematical comparative analysis of
images of Earth microbialities and corresponding Martian candidate microbialities, indicating
that Martian microbialities are biological with 99.6% probability. Here is direct quote of this
conclusion chapter of the year 2011 article:

The inorganic sedimentary processes follow simple rules, whereas the structures we described
denote complex products, congruent to the terrestrial biogenic environment: life has existed
and is still alive on Mars.

In figure 3.1 is object named Wopmay, by Opportunity rover, Sol 251. The name Wopmay
given by NASA rover team relates to history of stromatolite research on Earth. It is very similar
in appearance compared to Earth stromatolites.
Fig 3.1.Stromatolite candidate Wopmay on Mars

In figure 3.2 is a candidate for a thrombolite, a subcategory of stromatolites. Dr. Ian West has
pointed out of Sol 528 object that both the Purbeck thrombolite (on Earth, England) and the Sol
528 thrombolite have radial cracks, which may be result of burial. And if so, then the Martian
examples may have been buried and re-excavated by erosional processes. The Purbeck
thrombolite image is by Dr. West from his web-site (West 2016).

Fig.3.2.Thrombolite candidate on Mars versus thrombolite on Earth.

Fig.3.3.Stromatolite candidates on Mars

The Curiosity Sol 632 image in figure 3.4 has repeating hexagonal patterns. Similar patterns are
visible also in Pilbara region, Australia, as a result from microbial activity. NASA has
established a research co-operation with Australian Macquarie University to compare the
Pilbara region microbial fossil formations with similar Mars formations. See web-site by Dr.
Simon George and Dr. Carol Oliver: NASA Macquarie University Pilbara Education Project.
The Pilbara region has 3.43 billion year old microbial reef. See also Dr. Lyall Winston Small's
book about Martian stromatolites: The Living Rocks of Mars (2015).

Fig.3.4.Stromatolite candidates on Mars, observation by Dr. Lyall Winston Small. Right side
image is enlargement of the left side image.

In figures 3.5 and 3.6 are more images with possible stromatolite patterns and formations in
Mars by Curiosity and Opportunity.

Fig.3.5.Stromatolite candidates on Mars

Fig.3.6. Stromatolite candidates on Mars

Fig.3.7.Stromatolite candidates on Mars

Fig.3.8.Stromatolite candidates on Mars

In Sol 890 images there is interesting structure on surface. Curiosity's laser has blown dust away
from the surface of this structure. Usually the laser of Curiosity creates a hole to stone or sand.
But in this case, has the material of this object expanded when heated? Instead of ancient
stromatolites, Martian lichens alive today?

Fig.3.9. Stromatolite candidates on Mars

Fig.3.10.Microbialities candidates on Mars by Curiosity rover.

Fig.3.11.Microbialities candidates on Mars

Fig.3.12. Microbialities candidates on Mars. Opportunity Sol 719.

Good investigation about this subject is by Nora Noffke, Astrobiology Volume 15, Number 2,
2015: Ancient Sedimentary Structures in the < 3.7 Ga Gillespie Lake Member, Mars, That
Resemble Macroscopic Morphology, Spatial Associations, and Temporal Succession in
Terrestrial Microbialites.. Similar excellent investigation is Giorgio Bianciardi, Vincenzo
Rizzo, Nicola Cantasano, 2014: Opportunity Rover’s image analysis: Microbialites on Mars?.

A good site about ancient microbial Earth fossils is by Ph.D. Ian West: Fossil Forest, Lulworth
Cove; Part 1: The Ledge and Strata, Geology of the Wessex Coast of Southern England. The
similarities between Earth stromatolites and corresponding Mars objects is striking. I have had
discussions with Dr. West. He supports the view that the objects presented in this article as
candidates for stromatolites and thrombolites in Mars is correct.

On 9th of March 2016, Sol 1276, Curiosity arrived to a place which seems to have a lot of
objects resembling stromatolites. Curiosity stopped to investigate them and it took large number
of images with MAHLI and ChemCam. On Sol 1433 there is similar object.

Fig.3.13.Stromatolites, Sol 1276

Below are images by Opportunity microscopic imager. Things to consider here are
stromatolites, bacterial mats, layers cemented by microbial slime. I recommend visiting the
web-site by Canadian scientist Michael Davidson about these: Mars Fossils, Pseudofossils, and
Problematica. He made the analysis year 2004 when Spirit and Opportunity had been only few
months in Mars. In images A, B, C and D besides the possible stromatolites, the empty voids
also have interesting patterns. The 'Martian Rotini' feature in image E caused much debate
about possible fossils in Mars.

Fig.3.14.Stromatolites, Opportunity
See also site about Earth stromatolites versus Mars stromatolites by Richard Thieltges:
Evolutionary research - Stromatolite Identification Site. Thieltges has the largest collection of
Stromatolite fossils in North America. NASA has borrowed his collection to educate the Mars
rover scientists. And read: S. Leuko, L. J. Rothschild, B. P. Burns, Halophilic Archaea and the
Search for Extinct and Extant Life on Mars and Mark Strauss October 17, 2016: NASA’s Bold
Plan to Hunt for Fossils on Mars.

Interesting article is in Universe Today, November 2019 Evan Gough Scientists Search for
Ancient Fossils in Australia, Practicing the Techniques They’ll Use on Mars. NASA and ESA
scientists are practicing the identification of stromatolite and microbialities fossils on Mars for
coming Mars 2020 and ExoMars rovers. The practicing area is in Pilbara Australia, where are
well preserved Earth stromatolite fossils. Well done Ken Farley, Mitch Schulte and Martin Van
Kranendonk. But it is sad that the work of pioneers, Rizzo, Bianciardi, Cantasano, Noffke and
several citizen scientists (Small, Rabb, ..) is ignored and reused without mentioning the origin.
Few years ago I had a mail exchange with professor Kranendonk who is now the Director
of The Australian Centre for Astrobiology.

Microbes on Mars?
If Mars had life, then there could still be microbial life even today. This has been speculated
before as one source of Methane sometimes coming to atmosphere of Mars. Curiosity has
observed that the methane in atmosphere from time to time raises ten times higher compared to
normal level (source: Christopher R. Webster, 16.12.2014: Mars Methane Detection and
Variability at Gale Crater, and Christopher R. Webster et all, Science June 2018 Background
levels of methane in Mars’ atmosphere show strong seasonal variations). In Earth only certain
types of microbes produce methane, not all. In soil of Mars Curiosity observed methane.
Source: S.Djordjevic 2014: Simulating Martian conditions: Methanogen survivability during
freeze-thaw cycles. Methanogens are organisms which are anaerobic, do not require organic
nutrients, and are non-photosynthetic. In the tests reported in article above four species of
methanogens were tested in laboratory in conditions simulating Mars: low air pressure, higher
level of radiation and large temperature variations. Two of the methanogen species survived the
tests and even reproduced. Read also related article by Italian geologist and environmental
engineer Pietro Cambi, March 2017: There was life on Mars and not only on Saturday night ...
(the link is a google translation of original Italian language article C'era vita su Marte e non solo
il Sabato sera…). Cambi presents good arguments that the observed methane on Mars comes
from biological origin. The abiotic hypothesis fail to produce the observed amount of methane
by several orders of magnitude.

Another microbial species proposed to survive well in Martian conditions are

chemolithoautotrophs. This species exists also widely in Earth underground and inside stones,
even kilometers deep underground. They use the stones and minerals as energy source. The
underground microbes may form 80 percent of all biomass on Earth [118]. There are also
bacteria which interact with sulfates. Bacteria which interact with sulfur may play a role with in
seasonal color changes of surface of Mars [63].
In figure 4.1, left: Curiosity Sol 304 (14.6.2013). There is something white in stone hole.
Curiosity stopped on Sol 303 to take close up images of this with Mars Hand Lens Imager
(MAHLI). In Sol-304 20 close ups were taken. Right: Opportunity Sol 3392. Microscopic
camera shows holes and tubes with some small objects on them. Do we see here Martian
organisms based on stone and minerals eating chemolithoautotroph microbes?

Fig.4.1. Curiosity Sol 304 and Opportunity Sol 3392.

You can get the Curiosity Sol-304 original image here and the Opportunity Sol-3392 image
here. In figure 4.2 is comparison of the white objects in stone hole with 26 hours difference.

Fig.4.2. Curiosity Sol 304 close-up.

When you study the Sol-303 and Sol-304 pictures, you notice fine grained sand left on places
where there is no more white material. You could imagine that during the sandstorms of Mars
this sand is blown away from the stone holes. From Mast Camera images of Sol-305 and 306
you can see that Curiosity is still exactly in same position besides this object, but there is no
close up images with MAHLI of this object in the archive.

The Sol-304 and 306 images in figure 4.3 are from the same stonewall. Here it is possible to
consider possible development of stone holes, so that on left there is start situation with the
white material on the surface and later development phase is on right. On right the A-arrow is
the Sol-304 stone hole object presented above.

Fig.4.3. The Wall, Sol 305, Sol 306

Fig.4.4. Interesting crack in rock wall, Sol 158. In 4.5 we zoom in.

In figure 4.5 there is a larger occurrence of white material, Curiosity Sol-158. Notice the
similarity of Sol-158 objects compared to Sol-304 object.

Fig.4.5. Sol 158.

Fig.4.6. Sol-3392. Details of Opportunity Sol-3392 stone.

Curiosity science-team published 6 remarkable articles in Science magazine 9.12.2013.. You

can get the original articles under this link (select Reprint). One of articles is by the Curiosity
principal investigator John Grotzinger, signed by 60 other scientists: 'A Habitable Fluvio-
Lacustrine Environment at Yellowknife Bay, Gale Crater, Mars'. The main message of these
articles is that Mars has had good conditions for life. Below is few highlights of the article.

 Curiosity has analyzed the substances on the ground in Gale Crater area. There is all
needed basic elements for life: water, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, sulfur, nitrogen and
phosphorus.
 Gale crater has had a lake, with conditions suitable for life. The pH of water has been
neutral. Water would have been drinkable.
 In the area there is a lot of clay-minerals and mudstone. The hardness of them is
weak/medium.
 In chemical analysis with SAM equipment, while heating the samples, water and carbon
dioxide was released among other substances. The result of analysis is that the area
contains remarkable amounts of organic matter.
 The white veins and nodules (images below) contain sulfates. For the first time NASA
gives as one possible explanation alternative for the veins and nodules a living thing.
Here is a direct quote from the article:

"A final possibility considers the potential role of microbes, if life had ever evolved on
Mars. Terrestrial sediments are pervaded by microbes, which produce a variety of gases
that become trapped as bubbles where lithification is early and rapid (43). However, it
should be clear enough that this mechanism can only be invoked as a serious possibility
 after all other abiotic hypotheses have been discounted. This is not the case for our
current data set and we include this only for the sake of completeness."

I handle the possible reasons for the cautious statement "..we include this only for the
sake of completeness" at the end of this article.

 The conditions in the area would be suitable for stone and minerals eating microbes
called chemolithoautotrophs. Source: Mineralogy of a Mudstone at Yellowknife Bay,
Gale Crater, Mars by D. T. Vaniman. Direct quote: "...The possible formation of H2 gas
as part of this process could be another component of habitability, providing a potential
energy source for chemolithoautotrophs."

In Curiosity science team article in Science magazine 9.12.2013 it is told that this John Klein
area had a layer protecting from radiation as recently as 60 to 100 million years ago. The
protective layer has preserved organic materials so that Curiosity is able to find them in
chemical analysis. See article: NASA Curiosity: First Mars Age Measurement and Human
Exploration Help.

In many Curiosity pictures there are white veins with nodules on the ground like in Sol-192 and
Sol-181 images below, at John Klein site. In Sol-181 picture dust has been brushed away. And
from drilling picture of Sol-270 image (drilled in sol-182) we see that the veins seem to go deep
inside ground. Read this interesting NASA News about chemical analysis result of this drilling
sample: NASA Rover Finds Conditions Once Suited for Ancient Life on Mars. In drilling
picture it can be seen that under the thin red surface layer there is gray clay layer. There is 2-3
percent of water (locally even 6 percent) mixed in the soil. So the soil has moisture, which you
can observe also visually in the drilling hole below. Great place for microbes to live.

Fig.4.7. Veins, Sol 192.

You can see new white veins with new white nodules. And you can see old vein traces with old
nodules without the white material. For the first time NASA gives as possible explanation
possibility a living object for these white veins in article published in Science magazine
9.12.2013: "A Habitable Fluvio-Lacustrine Environment at Yellowknife Bay, Gale Crater,
Mars".

An excellent, freely readable, study of microbial life on Mars is by Dr. Lyall Winston Small,
September 2015: On Debris Flows and Mineral Veins - Where surface life resides on Mars.
Dr.Small points out in his book, chapter 4.6, that mineral veins on Earth are often populated
with microbial activity.
In figure 4.8 is comparison of John Klein area veins. Difference is 78 days. There are visible
changes. Curiosity investigated John Klein area for 3 weeks and came back to check the area
after 2 months.

Fig.4.8. Vein comparison, Sol 192-270

The white veins and nodules exist very widely in Curiosity and Opportunity pictures. There are
new veins and nodules and old ones without the white material visible anymore. They exist on
the ground, deeper inside ground and on the stones. In image archives there are several pictures
where you can figure out that parts of stones have dropped to ground just on the place where
white veins were inside the stone (e.g. in Sol-303 images).
Below are 2 more images to compare for changes during 78 days.

Fig.4.9. Another vein comparison.

At John Klein site Curiosity drilled first a test hole and after that the hole for getting a sample
for analysis. Both in the test hole and in the final hole we see the white veins on the walls of the
holes. Also in Cumberland sample hole we see the veins, but not on Windjana hole. So the John
Klein and Cumberland samples both contained the white vein material, for which NASA has
stated as one alternative the microbes. Analysis with SAM indicated organic materials in John
Klein and Cumberland samples.

John Klein test holes were drilled Sol-182. Curiosity was sent back to John Klein area in Sol-
270 to check the place again. Can we see changes in John Klein hole veins during 78 days? The
holes are only 1.6 centimeters wide. Having a lot of veins in 3 of the 4 sample holes, shows how
widely spread the veins are in Mars. And they may be microbial. The images D and E are the
same John Klein sample hole as C, but from another angle.

Fig.4.10. Underground veins.

Below are more candidates for possible microbial communities. Curiosity has used Chemistry
camera to Sol 608 and 609 objects to analyze the chemistry of them. These both are just about
50 centimeters distance from the Windjana drilling site. In last row there is underground soil as
result of failed test drilling. There are changes during 11 days. Note especially the dark greenish
grains or patches which have appeared in Sol 880 image (arrows B and C). Normal sand grains
should be reddish in color. The opportunity Sol 3502 has also interesting hole in low right part
of image. From small Sol 3949 image you can see that the color of the Sol 3502 lichens
resembling objects is white.

Fig.4.11. Microbial candidates.

In Sol 305 S-2 image seems like the white material is 'growing out' from the stone. The stone
itself has nice green (blue?) color as well as the sol 580 stone. Cyanobacteria? Algae? In Sol
580 and Sol-305 images I have embedded part of the images with auto white balanced versions,
which reveals a strong blue color. The Sol-304 is close to Sol-305 object and also in the same
stone wall as the Sol-304 'chemolithoautotroph' images in beginning of this book. The yellow
color tones and formations in Sol 584 image are interesting. Curiosity science team investigated
closely the Sol 1411 object, which resembles the Sol 305 S-2 object. Nearby stones have these a
lot, like in image 1408ML0068940010601914E01_DXXX.

Fig.4.12. Microbial candidates.

Sol 1090 veins look very fresh. They are dustless and on top of geological formations. Sol 2160
image by Opportunity is observations presented by Dr.Small in his book In search of life on
Mars[137]. There is blue objects on stone surfaces resembling lichens in this area. This area has
also Blueberries. Sol 925 area veins are interesting. In sol 1063 green fresh looking material
covers old geological formations (image by Dr.Small).

Fig.4.13. Microbial candidates.

An excellent, freely readable, study of possible microbial life on Mars is by Dr. Lyall Winston
Small, September 2015: On Debris Flows and Mineral Veins - Where surface life resides on
Mars.

Fig. 4.14. Books by Lyall Winston Small.

See also Dr.Small's year 2012 book In search of life on Mars and his observations from Mars
rover images in SmugMug. He is also the founder of Mars Rover Blog where Mars enthusiasts
analyze images of Mars rovers. Check out for example discussion threads Yellowknife Bay and
Mount Sharp - Extended Mission 1. On July 2016 Dr.Small made a new web site The Cosmos,
Mars and Life, where he handles daily discoveries from Mars and also philosophical aspects of
the discoveries.
Objects resembling lichens
Lichens are symbiotic organisms consisting of fungi combined with algae or cyanobacteria.
There is close to 20 000 species of lichens in Earth. Lichens are extremophiles; they can live in
very cold environments. The Lichen Buellia Frigida lives in rock surfaces in Antarctica. In
images below are lichens resembling blue objects presented by Dr.Small. Opportunity Sol 2144,
2155, 2147, 2164, 2164. In Curiosity Sol 1433 image there may be similar objects.

Fig.5.1. Lichens?Blue pigment (K.L.)?

The Curiosity Sol 1433 area is interesting, see the 1433MR0070800070702657E01_DXXX
image below.

Fig.5.2. Curiosity Sol 1433

On Sol 1344 MAHLI images, Curiosity has driven over stones, which broke. Inside stones there
is interesting patterns of white material. And on the nonbroken part of stone there are lichens
resembling brown objects.

Fig.5.3.Lichens? CuriositySol 1344.

Fig.5.4. In Curiosity Sol 890 images there is interesting structures on surface. Curiosity's laser
has blown dust away from the surface of this structure. Usually the laser of Curiosity creates a
hole to stone or sand. But in this case, has the material of this object expanded when heated?
Martian lichens alive today? In Opportunity sol 3502 there is another lichens resembling
structure.

Fig.5.5. Lichens on Earth, Finland - Kirkkonummi.

See also very comprehensive article by Robert Walker, 2015: Places on Mars to Look for
Microbes, Lichens, ... . Robert points out that for Earth microbes it has been previously thought
that -20 degrees Celcius is the low limit life to survive. But recent studies show that bacterial
activity inside glaciers survice -40 degrees Celcius. And there is even experiments with
Colwellia psychrerythraea strain 34H to have activity at -196 degrees Celcius.

For the -20 degree Celsius limit for microbial life I have to point out one very simple and
practical observation. I live in Finland where we have long cold winters. During the winter there
can be several months long periods of -30..-20 degree celsius temperatures. Both microbial life
and macroscopic life have developed methods to easily survive these long cold periods. As
example is image below from my backyard on winter (-30..-10 C) and on summer(+10..+30 C)
and local wildlife surviving the winter.

Fig.5.6. Life survives long cold winters on Earth.

Interesting species tolerating extreme conditions are Tardigrades. They tolerate temperature
range -272 C..+150C. They tolerate preassure from empty space to 6000 atmospheres. They
tolerate 5700 gray radiation dose, when humans are killed with 5 grays. They can suspend their
metabolism and go into a state of cryptobiosis. Perfect space travellers.
Objects resembling fungi
In figure 6.1 left: Curiosity Sol 173 image, at site named John Klein. There is something white
on the stone on the middle. On right is the same stone 13 Mars days later, sol 186. The white
material covers much larger area. In this place there are 4 of these white objects. One of them is
in the low right corner under stone of this picture. All of them are in shadow places, where the
ultraviolet light of the Sun does not reach. Also they are under rock surfaces, which partly
protect them from cosmic radiation.

Could these shape changing white objects be related to white veins and nodules? From small
images we can figure out that the object is there still 96 Sol later, Sol-269, when Curiosity came
back again to investigate this area.

Fig.6.1. Fungi? Curiosity Sol 173-269.

Fig.6.2. Enlargement of 0173MR0926139000E1_DXXX

Below is another similar case, just about half meter right from above image. The temperature
measurements by Curiosity indicated usually about +10..20 C on day and -80 C during the
night. But twice, for some reason, the night temperature was only -5 C (Source: S.Djordjevic
2014: Simulating Martian conditions: Methanogen survivability during freeze-thaw cycles).
One of these cases is around Sol-190 where we now see growth in size of these white objects.

The temperature of surface soil can reach +36 degrees Celsius for several hours during day at
equator [63]. And salty Martian water is in liquid state in temperature range -70..+10 degrees
Celsius [132,133].

Fig.6.3.Fungi?
For comparison to something similar on Earth: In figure 6.4, left and center: images of one
species of fungi growing on a piece of wood on my own backyard during 15 days. In small
image 28.3.2016 are the same fungi 5 months later after Finnish winter with snow and -20
degrees Celsius temperatures.

Image on the right: Compare this fungus on the surface of a tree in Massachusetts, USA, to Sol
1103 object coming little further below. In the Earth there are about 5 million species of fungi,
and they have existed in Earth at least from Precambrian time 600 million years ago.

The oldest fossil remains of Fungi on Earth are 2.4 billion years old, a discovery by Geologist
Birger Rasmussen from Curtin University in Australia: Peter Dockrill April 2017, The World's
Oldest Fungus Might Have Just Been Found Buried Under South Africa

Fig.6.4. Fungi on Earth.

Blueberries
In figures below are images by Opportunity of spherical objects named Blueberries. Note from
Sol 17 image how the blueberries give dark bluish appearance to the landscape. Can the large
dark areas like Sinus Meridiani in Mars be partly caused by blueberries? Also note that the sky
is blue, an issue which we handle at the end of this article in chapter Colors in Mars. Is there a
recent waterflow traces visible in Sol 122 blueberry area?

Read also remarkable observations about blueberries by Dr. Lyall Winston Small in his year
2012 book In search of life on Mars. The images below present some of Dr.Small's
observations.
In figure 6.5 we see how blueberries colour the landscape with dark tone all the way to horizon.
In the Hubble space telescope image we see that Opportunity rover is located in a dark area. On
right side image we see recent liquid outburst from underground. Observe the rover track above
the outburst location. Has the weight of the rover triggered the outburst?

Fig.6.5 Blueberries color landscape.

During 3 days from Sol 1145 to 1148 the size of Blueberries has got larger and there has
appeared new blueberries in 3 days time. Also observe blueberry C: the hole in the sand has
appeared on below-left area of the blueberry C. Has blueberry C done small movement while
growing? Is there a stem under? It could be argued that wind has moved the sand, exposing the
berries more in sol 1148. Counterargument is that in that case the mass of the sand would have
moved the berries also, but the berries are stationary. A, B, C and N1 have exactly same relative
position compared to eachother. Note the shape and features of berries A, B and C: they have
not rolled. General question: What is the propability for lifeless stones to grow, just when
Opportunity arrived there and pointed them with microscopic imager camera?

Fig.6.6 Growing Blueberries. Below zoom of sol 1148 image

Note that several blueberries have a stem in Sol 88 image. See the surface patterns of blueberry
in Sol 221 image. See in low-left corner the blue spot after grinding the stone. The blue channel
continues inside the stone? Sol 1103 broken Blueberry has internal structure, which does not fit
for a hematite spherule theory by NASA. Fungi on Earth can grow together like in Sol 182
image.

Fig.6.7 Blueberries with a stem.

On Sol 1232 Opportunity has driven over blueberries. The arrow points to blue stains resulted
from overdriven blueberries. On Sol 1289 new rover tracks there is no more unbroken
blueberries on surface. But in the same Sol 1289 image, the old rover tracs (done in Sol 952)
have been refilled with blueberries again!

Fig.6.8 Driving over Blueberries. Does the blue color come from blue pigment? Something to
do with strong UV light?

Compare the blueberry fields between Sol 1143 and 1150 images. There is new berries in Sol
1150, and some berries have got larger. In Sol 546 Opportunity has grinded soil where there is
blueberries. 3 days later, Sol 549, the surface soil has changed. Sol 210 and 715: Broken old
blueberries? In Curiosity images Sol 746, 1185, 1292 and 1355 there may be something similar
to blueberries.

Fig.6.9 Blueberries.
Standard NASA explanation for blueberries has been that these are billions of years old
hematite spherules born in ancient sea floor on Mars. But the images above force me to state
other possibility. Remember that on Mars there is 2-6 percent water mixed to the soil and air
provides daily moisture. Fungi on Earth behave like this. Grow out from the ground. Can grow
together like in Sol 182 image. The biological nature of blueberries is also supported in science
publications:

- Vincenzo Rizzo and Nicola Cantasano 2009, International Journal of Astrobiology 8 (4),
Possible organosedimentary structures on Mars

-V.Rizzo and N.Cantasano 2011, Mem. S.A.It.Vol.82, 2011, Textures on Mars: evidences of a
biogenic environment.

Fig.6.10 Blueberries may get smaller at dark and colder temperatures? See holes around the
blueberries in the sand.
Pinnacle Island - Opportunity Sol 3540
Below is a rock which 'come out of nowhere', Opportunity Sol 3540 - 7.1.2014. Read more
about it: Universe Today The Rock that Appeared Out of Nowhere on Mars. The object was not
there in Sol 3528. One option is that when Opportunity went past this place in Sol 3528, the
wheel kicked of the stone to its current place. It would be a good theory if it would be a
common Mars stone.

But things got complicated: Opportunity made a chemical analysis for it. This object has high
amounts of sulfur, magnesium and manganese. The chemical composition differs from anything
Opportunity had analyzed in past 10 years. Also its appearance and color differs from common
Mars stones. Object has been named Pinnacle Island.

The Sol 3528 image in second row is the sharpest available "before" image. The problem with
the 'stone rolled to its place' theories is that there is no debris, scratches or dislocated small
stones around this object compared to Sol 3528.

Fig.6.11. Pinnacle Island.

The black and white pictures below are with microscopic camera of this object. There are
changes on surface patterns visible in 10 days’ time in first row. In second row black and white
pictures Sol 3541 and 3562 we possibly see three dimensional shape changes in the center
(marked with circle) during 21 days.

Fig.6.12.Pinnacle Island, details.

Opportunity investigated this object for 4 weeks. In spite of that NASA has put only few images
of microscopic camera of this object to archive. And Sol 3552-3559 of microscopic imager is
missing totally. On 5th of February 2014 the very sharp images below were added afterwards to
Sol 3560 archive. Don’t we see here very clear microbial growth patterns on the surface? Also
the surface structure is interesting. Note that there are no sand grains on surface of this object.
Do we see interference patterns in sub image A? Would the structure in sub image B have
survived if Opportunity wheel kicked Pinnacle Island from underground?

Fig.6.13.Pinnacle Island, details.

One proposal for this object has been a composite organism called Apothecia which is a
mixture of fungus and cyanobacteria ( Rhawn Joseph 2014: Apothecia on Mars? Life
Discovered on the Red Planet). This object would have grown here. In that case we should
probably find more of these in image archives. The John Klein site Sol-173 white shape
changing objects belongs to this category and the Blueberries as well. And more such
candidates could be in Curiosity Sol 538 (10.2.2014) and Sol 533 images below. The objects
below are about 1 meter distance from each other. In Sol 487 image there may be similar object.

Fig.6.14. More fungi?

Also Sol-395 area is worth of investigating. After investigating Pinnacle Island for 4 weeks
NASA gave an official press release that "We have solved this case, Pinnacle Island is just a
rock". I am sorry that I have to disagree. The reason should be obvious when you study the
images of Pinnacle Island by Microscopic imager. And more reasons I handle at the end of this
article.
In figure 6.15 below are more candidates for fungi and lichens. In Sol 617 images K1..K5 there
is yellow color (not covered so much by red dust) small objects in same area. In K-4 image
there is 2 objects. The shape of Sol 617 X-5 object resembles Pinnacle Island, covered by red
dust. The shape of X-5 is also similar to K-4 upper object. In Curiosity Sol-647 image there is
this nice greenish object in middle of red dust covered landscape. The Sol 173 has small yellow
tone round objects on the stone. They have similarities with Spirit Sol 822 white objects.

Fig 6.15. Fungi? Lichens?

Several of the fungi type objects in Mars, especially Blueberries, are evaluated by biologists and
geologists in article: 2016-5-15 R. Gabriel Joseph, Ph.D.: A Low to High Probability of Life on
Mars: The Experts' Top Five Candidates. The 40 biologists and 30 geologists who participated
the survey, supported the view that the Mars images in the study contained living objects.
Disappearing white objects
Below left, Curiosity Sol 173. There is something white under a 'stone' at John Klein site. On
right 19 Mars days later, sol 192, the white objects are away.

Fig.6.16.Disappearing white objects. Sol 173-192.

There are 2 Mast Camera images of the objects in Sol-173, with 46 seconds difference.
Interesting question is that why there is no traces left of these objects in Sol 192? For objects A
and B it is possible to set a symmetry plane. And it is good to know that about 2 meters to the
right from this place is an underground hole which shown later in this article in figure 13.5. In
black and white navigation camera image it may be possible to say: the objects are not there 9
hours before in Sol 172. And they are not there 8 minutes later, in Sol 173 01:19:02 UTC.

Fig.6.17.Disappearing white objects. Sol 173-192.

The objects are probably away also in Sol 177. See the Sol-177 image below which has been
taken from long distance.

Fig.6.18. Sol-177 (0177MH0226000043E1_DXXX).

You may have a question that can some of Sol-173 objects be produced by frozen water or
carbon dioxide ice? The temperature in the equator area where Curiosity and Opportunity are
moving is on day +10..20 degrees Celsius and on night -80. The freezing point of carbon
dioxide ice is -79 degrees Celsius in Earth pressure. And in low atmospheric pressure of Mars
the freezing point is even lower. So it cannot be carbon dioxide ice. Could this be frozen water?
Curiosity observed 2-3 percent of water in the soil (locally even 6 percent). The salty water in
low pressure of Mars is in liquid state in temperature range -70 degrees Celsius to +10 degrees
Celsius. But if this would be frozen water, then there should be these white objects a lot in
images of Mars rovers. But that is not the case now. Also the shape of the Sol-173 objects is
such that I cannot imagine them to be snow or ice.

There is another disappearing white object, in figure 6.19, in these Sol-528 and 530 images,
where the object can be seen in Sol-528 image and it is not there anymore in Sol-530:

Fig.6.19. Disappearing white objects. Sol 528-530.

When you look at Sol 530 image you notice that the sand is darker below the former white
object. And there are traces of a flow. But where does this liquid come from if we assume that
this freezing and melting process has been going on here for thousands of years? Is there liquid
water very close underground in Sol 530 area?

Publications by Science Groups

In 45th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) meeting 17-21.3.2014 in Texas
planetary scientists, geologists and astronomers present their latest findings. The 45th LPSC
meeting was heavily Mars related. There were over 300 publications concerning Mars. The
Curiosity and Opportunity science teams present their latest results. Also science teams which
have tested Earth microbes in conditions simulating planet Mars, present their results. See this
agenda with links to all the abstracts.

The 46th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference was in Texas March 16–20, 2015. See
abstracts from sessions 253: Exobiology: Prebiotic chemistry to extremophile biology.

The 47th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference was in Texas March 21–25, 2016. See
abstracts from sessions 451: (Is there) Life On Mars? Martian exobiology tools, analogs, and
environments, Exobiology session 702 and Exobiology session 603.

In following chapters are short descriptions and also direct quotes of the abstracts of some of
the publication.

Perchlorate reducing bacteria and Biological potential of Gale crater

subsurface
From 47th LPSC following articles can be highlighted:

K. F. Bywaters and R. C. Quinn: Perchlorate reducing bacteria: Evaluating the potential for
growth utilizing nutrient sources identified on Mars..

Direct quote: Our results show that perchlorate-reducing bacteria, which may provide a good
analogy for potential life on Mars, are capable of utilizing the nutrients available in martian
surface materials.

Related excellent article was published in 2010:

Joop M. Houtkooper, Dirk Schulze-Makuch, The Possible Role of Perchlorates for
Martian Life

The article presents a biochemical model for life on Mars in current conditions of Mars. With
the model the atmospheric moisture provides enough liquid water for current surface life down
to minus 70 Celsius temperatures, and with sufficient level of water activity. It is good to read
the whole article, but here are few direct quotes, about the basic ideas:

Q1: An interesting property perchlorate salts share with hydrogen peroxide is their
effectiveness as anti-freeze. Whereas the eutectic for H2O-H2O2 freezes at -56 C, the water-
magnesium perchlorate eutectic is as low as -70 C.

Q2: Why would organisms evolve to include hydrogen peroxide in their intracellular fluid? The
physical and chemical properties of H2O2-H2O mixtures would be beneficial for life to cope
with a harsh Martian near-surface environment. Any organisms on Mars would have been
subject to evolutionary pressures, as the Martian surface became colder, dryer, and subject to
higher radiation levels, to develop an adaptation to H2O2, similar to how life on Earth adapted
to high concentration of free molecular oxygen about 2.5 billion year ago.

Q3: Ambient conditions on Mars are often deemed adverse to the existence of life. Mars is
considered to be too cold and too dry, the soil too oxidizing, the atmosphere too thin, the solar
radiation containing too much UV and there is much hard radiation from solar and cosmic
origin because of the lack of a magnetosphere. However, some Earth organisms show a
remarkable resistance to UV and to various types of irradiation, and adaptations to oxidative
stresses and irradiation involve many of the same resistance responses in microorganisms.

Mars Odyssey data indicates water on equator areas of Mars. See articles: August 2017: Mars
Probe Data Shows The Red Planet Is Hiding Water Where There Shouldn't Be Any and Icarus
2017-07-028, Jack T.Wilson Equatorial locations of water on Mars: Improved resolution maps
based on Mars Odyssey Neutron Spectrometer data . Consider following possibility: Martian
life may have adopted hydrogen peroxide as intra-cellular fluid, which works as anti-freeze. So
Martian microbial life and fungi could bind liquid water at equatorial areas and that would be
visible in Mars odyssey data.

B. J. Rodriguez-Colon and E. G. Rivera-Valentín: Investigating the biological potential of Gale

crater’s subsurface..

Direct quote: Our definitions for Special and Uncertain Regions may change with new
biological discoveries. Indeed, there exists strong evidence for certain metabolic processes
below 255 K, but propagation by DNA replication has not yet been documented. Life as we
currently know it may not persist at Gale crater due to the low temperature conditions, but our
simulations suggest that liquid water, via deliquescence, with tolerable water activity is
possible. This opens new possibilities for martian life.

Z.R. Harrold, E.M. Hausrath, C.L. Bartlett, A.H. Garcia, O. Tschauner: Bioavailability of
mineral-bound iron to a Snow Algae community and implications for life in extreme
environments.

Direct quote: Laboratory results show cultures of C. brevispina and the accompanying
bacterial consortia are capable of obtaining iron from nontronite. Observations from the field
further suggest that iron-bearing minerals are an important source of micronutrients for snow
algae-bacterial communities. Future work will probe the mechanisms of iron uptake and role of
bacteria-algae interactions.

H. Yano, A. Yamagishi, H. Hashimoto: The first year operation and initial sample analysis and
curation preparation of Tanpopo, the Japanese astrobiology experiment onboard the ISS-JEM-
EF.

There is a Japanese astrobiology experiment going on onboar International Space Station.

Particles from interstellar space are collected to aero-gel on a device named Tanpopo. Later
particles will be analysed to test the panspermia theory: Will microbes be found in the aero-gel?
See also related 46th LPSC 2015 article: Wright S. P: Microbial Diversity Analyses of
Terrestrial Shocked Basalt and Shocked Basaltic Soil: Implications for Panspermia and Future
Exobiology Measurements.

Rock Varnish
N.L.Lanza 2014, Manganese trends with depth on rock surfaces in Gale crater, Mars.

Direct quote: Because of the close association between Mn minerals and microbial activity on
Earth, Mn-oxides have been suggested as a potential biosignatures for Mars missions [5, 13-
14], although Mn-rich coatings may also form abiotically [15-17].

Astrobiologist Barry E.DiGregorio observed from Mars images of Viking landers that many
Martian rocks have a dark tone coating similar seen in rocks on Earth. The dark coating in Earth
rocks is called rock varnish. In his studies Barry was able to show that this manganese rich
coating in Earth rocks is created by micro-organisms which have died on the surface of the
rock. See news article about this: Rock varnish may hold clues to life on Mars. And see Barrys
original year 2001 publication: B.E.DiGregorio 2001, Rock Varnish As A Habitat For Extant
Life On Mars. Below left is year 2006 image by Spirit Mars-rover with dark toned rocks
possibly covered by rock varnish. On the right is Caribou target which Curiosity investigated.

Fig.7.1.Rock Varnish.
Curiosity has investigated the rock surfaces on Martian rocks. The results seem to confirm
Barrys interpretation that dark toned rocks on Mars are covered by manganese rich coating. And
as one option is given that they are produced by microbes, as Barry suggests. Note that this
Curiosity team Manganese trends article refers, ref [14], to Barrys publication linked above. See
also news 21.3.2014: Bare Earth Elements: Mars rocks wear manganese coats. And read David
H. Krinsley, Barry DiGregorio, Ronald I. Dorn, Josh Razink & Robert Fisher, March 2017: Mn-
Fe-Enhancing Budding Bacteria in Century-Old Rock Varnish, Erie Barge Canal, New York.

Methanogen microbes in simulated Martian environment

R.L.Mickol and T.A.Kral 2014: Approaching Martian conditions: Methanogen survival at low
pressure
Direct quote: Methanogens are ideal organisms for life on Mars because they are anaerobic, do
not require organic nutrients, and are non-photosynthetic (they can exist in sub-surface
environments). Four separate strains of methanogen (Methanothermobacter wolfeii,
Methanosarcina barkeri, Methanobacterium formicicum, Methanococcus maripaludis) were
tested for their ability to survive prolonged periods of time under low pressure conditions.
These four species were chosen as representives of the Archaea domain. .. Generally, the
exposure to low pressure did not hinder the growth (in terms of methane production) of any of
the four methanogen strains.

S.Djordjevic 2014: Simulating Martian conditions: Methanogen survivability during freeze-

thaw cycles
Direct quote: Methanogens are obligate anaerobes that use molecular hydrogen as an energy
source and carbon dioxide as a carbon source to produce methane. They are classified as
Archaea and are found in many extreme environments, including hydrothermal vents,
volcanoes, and also the human microflora. The current Martian atmosphere is low in pressure,
very dry (hyper-arid), and high in radiation, and thus the surface is not suitable for life.
However, the subsurface contains permafrost, liquid water [1], and trace amounts of methane
[2, 3]. Thus, it is proposed that these Archaea are able to persist in Martian conditions. (End of
quote)

The Methanothermobacter wolfeii and Methanobacterium formicicum survived the tests and
had even increase in growth. This article also presents temperature measurements by Curiosity
during 500 days. Usually the night temperature was around -80 C. But in two cases around Sol
190 and 210 the night temperature was only -5 C. Note: The old official NASA view of dry and
hyper arid Mars was completely changed 28.9.2015 [132,133]. Now new NASA view is that it
is wet. There is liquid water in soil and moisture in the air.

See also 46th LPSC 2015 article: Sinha N., Kral T. A: Growth of Methanogens on Different
Mars Regolith Analogues and Stable Carbon Isotope Fractionation During Methanogenesis
Very interesting test was done by Dr. Vladimir S. Cheptsov and his group in Lomonosov
Moscow State University: 100 kGy gamma-affected microbial communities within the ancient
Arctic permafrost under simulated Martian conditions . See also news, Universe Today, Matt
Williams , November 2017 : Life on Mars can Survive for Millions of Years Even Right Near
the Surface . In the simulated Martian conditions tested microbes shoved good resistance to the
high radiation levels of Martian surface.

Lichens in simulated Martian environment

J.Jänchen 2014: Impact of UVC exposure on the water retention of the Lichen Buellia Frigida
Direct quote: New results on extremophiles and observations of Mars missions regarding the
detailed mineralogy, the occurrence of water in the equatorial region of Mars [1-3], new
announcements of MSL findings and their implications for the surface conditions at Gale crater
[4, 5] as well as measurements of the Mars surface radiation environment [6] fuel the debate
about possible developments of life on Mars. Based on previous studies [7-8] we examined
water vapor interaction and water-bearing properties of B. frigida before and after UVC
irradiation. The measurements have been partially conducted after simulation of environmental
conditions which are supposed to be Mars-like. Lichens are symbiotic organisms that are able
to colonize a broad range of extreme habitats and, therefore, represent useful model systems in
astrobiological research. .... The UVC-treatment improves the ability of physisorption of water
by creating extra sorption sites in the mycobiont. The study has to be continued for getting more
knowledge into this interesting outcome.

Lichens are symbiotic organisms consisting of fungi combined with algae or cyanobacteria. The
Lichen Buellia Frigida lives in rock surfaces in Antarctica. There is close to 20 000 species of
lichens in Earth.

See also article by Chelsea Gohd, February 12 2017: NASA Discovers an Organism That Can
Survive 16 Months in Outer Space. Quote: "Scientists aboard the International Space Station
(ISS) recently ran an experiment where they let algae loose into the vacuum of space for a full
16 months. And, surprisingly enough, the simple plants survived the harrowing journey. Despite
extreme temperature variations, UV radiation, cosmic radiation, and incredible length of time,
the algae were brought back aboard still alive.".
This means that Algae type life would easily survive in Mars.

Biosignatures on Mars
Very good and comprehensive article about this area is Biosignatures on Mars: What, Where,
and How? Implications for the Search for Martian Life by PhD. Frances Westall et all,
Astrobiology Vol.15. CNRS-OSUC-Centre de Biophysique Moleculaire, Orleans, France.
And read also A.J.Williams 2014: Biogenic iron mineralization at Iron mountain, CA, with
implications for detection with the Mars Curiosity rover.
Direct quote: Microbe-mineral interactions and biosignature preservation in oxidized sulfidic
ore bodies (gossans) are prime candidates for astrobiological study. Such oxidized iron systems
have been proposed as analogs for some Martian environments [1]. Recent studies identified
microbial fossils preserved as mineral-coated filaments [2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]. This study documents
microbially-mediated mineral biosignatures in hydrous ferric oxide (HFO) and ferric
oxyhydroxysulfates (FOHS) in three environments at Iron Mountain, CA. ..... The
characterization of mineral filaments as biosignatures provides insight into mineral
biosignatures detectable by MSL. Individual filaments are below MAHLI resolution, but
sinuous filaments forming mat-like textures are resolvable. With a suite of analyses acquired by
the MSL instruments to define the geochemical and mineral environment, those features could
be identified on Mars as similar to these filaments on Earth, and potentially biogenic. These
features could be preserved in a crystalline hematitebearing ridge on Mt. Sharp, which is on
MSL’s expected path [14].

Organic compounds and Phosphate

A.Buch 2014: Impact of the sample preparation on the organic compounds detected on mars at
JK and CB.
Direct quote:... Several peaks have been identified by GCMS analysis of JK and CB as part of
SAM background, some of them below the nmol level. Identification of these peaks reveal the
presence of several aromatic, chlorinated hydrocarbons (Table 1) and silylated compounds
such as water. The most interesting of these compounds are listed in Table 1. The question of
the endogenous or exogenous origins of these compounds has to be asked. (End of quote.)

Endogenous substances are those that originate from within an organism, tissue, or cell. JK =
John Klein drilling site, CB = Cumberland drilling site. See also Universe Today, Tim Reyes on
December 17, 2014: NASA’s Curiosity Rover detects Methane, Organics on Mars.

S.M.Som 2014: Reactive transport modeling of Phosphate mineral dissolution in high-P

Martian rock
Direct quote: Phosphate is among the nutrients considered critical for all known life [1-4]. The
ion is a component in ATP, DNA, RNA, phospholipid cell membranes and required in numerous
fundamental biochemical reactions [5]. Phosphorus, either as phosphate or a more reduced
species such as phosphite, is also considered crucial in pre-biotic reactions that may have led
to the origin of life on Earth [5-7]. A determining factor for the potential of Mars to develop
and maintain life may therefore be the availability of phosphorus. ....Thus, in otherwise
habitable environments on Mars, phosphate availability for potential prebiotic and biotic
reactions should be comparatively higher than for Earth, a positive implication for the potential
of past or present martian life.
According to this article the phosphorous availability of Mars is 5-10 times higher compared to
Earth.

Special regions on Mars

D.W.Beaty and J.D.Rummel 2014: Introduction to an updated analysis of planetary protection
“Special regions” on Mars.

This article concerns UN Space Treaty of 1967 and the International Council for Science’s
Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) Planetary Protection Policy. Meaning is to avoid
harmful biological contamination between planets. There can be negative consequences of
transferring life from one planet to another. There can be unknown consequences from the
contact between two life forms. And when studying a new form of life, we must have
thoughtfulness and caution. The “special regions” concept is defined in the COSPAR Planetary
Protection Policy for Mars. These are regions “within which terrestrial organisms are likely to
replicate” as well as “any region which is interpreted to have a high potential for the existence
of extant Martian life.”

The reasons for updating the UN Space Treaty and COSPAR Planetary Protection Policy are
recent findings in Mars and laboratory tests performed in Earth.

Concepts of Life in the Contexts of Mars

Another interesting meeting was The Eighth International Conference on Mars, July 2014
Pasadena California. A nice summary of meeting is by Valerie Fox, 8th Mars Report: Martian
habitability. Check the abstracts of session Biosignatures, Habitability, and Preservation and
Rover-Scale Geology and Organics. Especially can be highlighted articles:

D.J. Des Marais 2014: Concepts Of Life In The Contexts Of Mars. .

Here is direct quote from this article: Finally, evidence of ancient life should be sought in those
environments that have been determined to exhibit a high combined potential for prior
habitability and preservation of biosignatures. A biosignature is a substance, structure of
pattern that requires a biological origin. Potential biosignatures could be indicated by the
following efforts [9]: “…., (2) Seek evidence of possibly biogenic physical structures, from
microscopic (micronscale) to macroscopic (meter-scale), combining morphological,
mineralogical, and chemical information where possible, ….”

Note especially that in point (2) can be re-written in English so that we are allowed to try to find
in rover images possible fossils of ancient life on Mars.
Dissolution cavities in stones
Barry DiGregorio made a groundbreaking study about dissolution cavities in Martian
stones: Barry E. DiGregorio, Dissolution cavities in Upper Ordovician sandstones from Lake Ontario: Analogs
to vesiculated rocks on Mars?, Proc. SPIE 4859, Instruments, Methods, and Missions for Astrobiology V, (26
February 2003).

Dissolution cavities means the following: An organism dies and gets buried in soil. During time
it gets fossilized. Later acidic water can wear out the fossilized organism leaving only the hole
left to the stone, a kind of negative fossil. Barry shows in this article that the holes in Martian
stones may have formed this way as similar stones holes in Earth. Below is image from Mars by
Viking 2, showing a stone with possible dissolution cavities. In Curiosity Sol-514 image, we
can think about how the stone would look like if the white parts would be away.

Fig.7.2.Dissolution cavities by Viking 2 and below by Perseverance and in Lake Ontario.

Mars Meteorites
The study of meteorites from Mars has given interesting indications of life on Mars. See
Astrobiology Magazine 19 August 2014, about a Mars-meteorite which fell to Nakhla, Egypt,
year 1911: Life on Mars? Implications of a newly discovered mineral-rich structure. And the
original publication Elias Chatzitheodoridis 2014: A Conspicuous Clay Ovoid in Nakhla:
Evidence for Subsurface Hydrothermal Alteration on Mars with Implications for Astrobiology.
Elias and his group have investigated an oval shaped structural object(image below) which they
found inside this Mars meteorite. It may be an ancient primitive Martian life form, which is
handled in chapter 4.4 of the study linked above.

Also interesting article is Matt Williamson 2014: Meteorite May Contain Proof of Life on Mars,
Researchers Say. In this article Philippe Gillet, director of EPFL’s Earth and Planetary Sciences
Laboratory, describes the Tissint meteorite which fell on Morocco 2011. This meteorite
originated from Mars 700000 years ago, and analysis shows that it contains organic carbon,
which is very probable of biological origin in Mars.

Fig.7.3. Mars Meteorites.

One of the well-known Mars meteorites is ALH84001, which NASA scientists announced 1996
to contain possible microscopic fossils. Groundbreaking discoveries of bacteria carried inside
meteorites is by NASA Astrobiologist Dr. Richard Hoover, 2011: Fossils of Cyanobacteria in
CI1 Carbonaceous Meteorites.
More Science publications
Other interesting articles are:Lindsay Hays et al.: NASA Astrobiology Strategy 2015

D. Glavin 2014: Origin of Chlorobenzene detected by the Curiosity rover in Yellowknife bay: Evidence for
Martian organics in the Sheepbed mudstone?
J. Ronholm 2014: Mineralogical characterization of calcium carbonate polymorphs biologically precipitated
during heterotrophic bacterial growth
M. Nachon 2014: Calcium sulfate characterized by chemcam/Curiosity at Gale crater, Mars
R.V.Morris 2014: Chemical composition of crystalline, smectite, and amorphous components for Rocknest soil
and John Klein and Cumberland mudstone drill fines using APXS, CHEMIN, and SAM datasets from Gale
crater, Mars
Onyilagha,J.C 2014: Further Investigation into the Biosynthetic Pathways of the 20 Standard Amino Acids of
the Genetic Code
S.M.Som 2014: An integrative approach to assessing habitability of H2 metabolisms in hydrothermal springs
J. Audouard 2014: Water-equivalent hydrogen content of the Martian surface
J.E. Brandenburg 2014, Meteorite NWA 7533, the Confirmation of the CI-Mars Hypothesis, and The Mars Age
ParadoxJ.P.Grotzinger, and the MSL Science Team 2014: Habitability, Organic Taphonomy, And The
Sedimentary Record Of Mars. .
P. G. Conrad 2014: The Present Habitability Potential of Gale Crater: What We Have Learned So Far From
Mars Science Laboratory. .
N.L.Lanza 2014: High Manganese Observations With Chemcam in Gale Crater, MarS.
Jie Wei, Alian Wang 2014: Detecting Biosignatures on Mars: Lessons Learned from Mars Analog Site Studies.
R. Bhartia 2014: Combining Chemistry and Morphology to Assess Biosignature.
R. L. Mickol 2014: Methanogens as Models for Life on Mars.
Scott M. Perl 2014: Experimental Constraints on Martian Aqueous Environments and Biosignature
Preservation: Simulating Fluid Flow Profiles and Microbial Development in the Shallow Subsurface.
Fossils on Mars?
Let’s assume that the ancestors of microbes were born in Mars over 4 billion years ago as
Steven Benner proposes. And let’s assume that Mars had good conditions for life in beginning
of history of Mars as Curiosity science team tells, with lead of John Grotzinger, in 9th of
December 2013 publications in Science magazine. Why the evolution would have stopped to
level of microbes? Isn’t it possible that evolution would have proceeded much further in planet
Mars?

Curiosity is moving on ancient lake floor on Mars. Very interesting images can be found on
Curiosity’s raw image archives: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/raw/ . Select Mast
camera and search the images (open Full resolution images):

Sol 186

Mastcam: Right 2013-02-13 07:39:13 UTC (Direct link)

Mastcam: Right 2013-02-13 07:38:27 UTC (Direct link)

Sol 109

Mastcam: Right 2012-11-25 23:09:11 UTC (Direct link)

Mastcam: Right 2012-11-25 23:09:56 UTC (Direct link)

It is reasonable that you go and fetch the original images from Curiosity archive, so that you can
see that these pictures are real, not fake. Store the pictures to your computer so that you can
zoom into them.

Here is combined picture of the above mentioned Curiosity picture, Sol 186, John Klein site:

Fig.8.1.John Klein site, Sol 186. 0186MR0927120000E1_DXXX, 0186MR0927121000E1_DXXX

Sol 109:

Fig.8.2. Sol 109. Images 0109MR0684022000E1_DXXX and 0109MR0684021000E1_DXXX

When you look at Curiosity pictures of objects in Sol-186 and Sol-109, you very fast realize
that "Here I see animal bones of ancient life".

Pictures are so clear and sharp that is difficult to deny what you see and say
"Random processes of nature can produce this kind of shapes to stones".

And when you accept that here are animal fossils on planet Mars, the consequences are
remarkable. It means that conditions in Mars have been for very long time good for life to
evolve from RNA and DNA to microbes and further to multicellular life like plants and
animals.

I understand that this is a bold statement. But on the other hand it is a natural consequence of
the evolution in a planet having good conditions for life and microbial life in the beginning.

When did the environment in Mars become worse for life? Currently the timing of geological
periods of Mars is not yet fixed as you can read from blogs by Emily Lakdawalla in Planetary
Society:

5-12-2013 Mars' chemical history: Phyllosian, Theiikian, Siderikian, oh my

25-10-2013 Noachian, Hesperian, and Amazonian, oh my! - Mars' Geologic Time Scale

In some estimates Mars was habitable maybe only for 300 million years. But a recent study
shows that Mars had liquid water on surface just 500 000 years ago: T.de Haas 2015, Earth-like
aqueous debris-flow activity on Mars at high orbital obliquity in the last million years.
Interesting question also is that how long time evolution needs to develop multicellular life? In
Earth it took about 2 billion years before this transition happened. Given suitable conditions in a
planet, can evolution proceed faster? Can the high phosphorus content of Mars, 5-10 times
compared to Earth, be one of the key factors? Year 2015 study with Keck, VLT and NASA
infrared telescopes of water-deuterium ratio on Mars [222], shows that Mars had oceans at least
for 1.5 billion years, long enough for life to evolve: Universe today: Bob King,March 2015,
Mars Loses an Ocean But Gains the Potential for Life.
Instead of Benner’s theory of life born on Mars the panspermia theory by Fred Hoyle and
Chandra Wickramasinghe could explain the observations from Mars maybe even better. That
would take maybe one billion years or more away from time scale of emergence of life:
microbes based on same DNA would be available everywhere in our solar system when
planetary bodies cooled enough.

Below is combined picture of Sol 173 and 186 Mast camera pictures. It is located left from Sol-
186 picture. In this picture you see also the white objects presented above (white arrows) and
more possible pieces of fossils (yellow arrows).

Fig.8.3. John Klein site, Sol 173 and 186. Images 0173MR0926138000E1_DXXX, 0173MR0926139000E1_DXXX,
0173MR0926139000E1_DXXX, 0173MR0926100000E1_DXXX, 0186MR0927120000E1_DXXX.

Below is view from place, where sol 186 and 173 pictures (yellow arrows) were taken.
Curiosity spent 3 weeks investigating this area, which is named John Klein. From this image it
is possible to figure out the scale of the Sol-186 and 173 fossils, if you compare it to Curiosity
wheel size. The size of the fossil bones may be 5-10 centimeters. This image is part of famous
Curiosity self-portray (PIA16763). I have embedded to this image two originals from archive
(0177MH0226000019E1_DXXX and 0177MH0226000043E1_DXXX), for which natural colors are set with Gimp
automatic white balancing. The sky is blue.
Fig.8.4.John Klein site.

These same kinds of objects resembling fossils can be found more especially from Curiosity
Sol-107 and Sol-109 Mast camera archives. Below are some of them. Sol 173 and 109 images
are here again to make comparison easier.

Fig.8.5. Fossils? Sol 107, 109, 173

Fig.8.6.Fossils? Sol 107, 64. Images 0107MR0682050000E1_DXXX and
0064MR0285069000E1_DXXX

Fig.8.7.Fossils? Sol 107, 109. Images 0107MR0682042000E1_DXXX,

0109MR0684015000E1_DXXX, 0109MR0684013000E1_DXXX.

Fig.8.8.Fossil? Sol 186.

In case of Sol 303 below, the negative fossils can be considered. Sol 514 has been named as
Harrison.

Fig.8.9.Fossils?
In Curiosity Sol-1922 image the possibility for a trace fossil is discussed in article Leonard
David, Barry DiGregorio, January 2018: Curiosity Mars Rover Investigates Eye-catching, Odd
Features.

DiGregorio has written a book about this: Discovery on Vera Rubin ridge: Trace fossils on
Mars?. The book has been reviewed by former NASA Viking Lander biologist Gilbert V.
Levin.

Fig.8.10.Trace fossils?
Esperance
Opportunity images of Sol-3230 and Sol-3262 (28.3.2013) of object called Esperance is worth
of investigating. Esperance is located at Endeavour crater, in place named Matijevic Hill.
Opportunity spent two months investigating Esperance. See NASA article about it, Guy
Webster, may 2013: Mars Rover Opportunity Examines Clay Clues in Rock. The elements of
Esperance differ from what Opportunity had analyzed in past 9 years. Esperance has more
aluminum and silica and less calcium and iron.

Fig.9.1A .Esperance.Sol 3230, PIA17074

Fig.9.1B .Esperance.Sol 3262, PIA16930

Esperance is a little strange object. Esperance has quite special symmetric and geometric
shapes. I recommend you to study carefully the high resolution picture of Esperance. You will
notice several amazing things. See also this analysis of Esperance Chemistry by Opportunity
science team: B. C. Clark 2014: Espérance: Extreme aqueous alteration in fracture fills and
coatings at Matijevic Hill, Mars. In chapter Astrobiological Significance of the article the litho-
bionts are organisms which are growing on rock surfaces, like Fungi and Lichens.

Esperance was investigated a record time, 60 days. The Opportunity principal investigator,
Steve Squyres said: Esperance was so important, we committed several weeks to getting this
one measurement of it, even though we knew the clock was ticking.
In picture below the 2 gray pictures on left are with Microscopic imager of area in middle of
image above right. The image left looks like fossilized plant leave or algae. In the image on
middle Opportunity has grinded this object. After grinding there is something like plant stem
cut from middle.

Fig.9.2.Esperance, details.
Below is a composition of Microscopic camera images of part of Esperance during 60 days,
Sols 3239, 3262, 3264, 3267 and 3298.

Fig.9.3.Esperance, details.
More interesting objects
Hollow spheres

Below is more interesting objects. One class of objects is round shells in images A-1..A-12,
whatever they may be. A-8, A-11 and A-12 stromatolites? A-1 and A-3 are empty. The A-2 and
A-5 may still contain something. Looks like the thin shell in A-9 has collapsed. It is notable that
these objects concentrate in small area around Sol-395..401, meaning possibly a certain
geological time period is exposed here.

Fig.10.1.Shells.The whole Sol-395 area is interesting. Investigate also images

0395MR1626009000E1_DXXX, 0395MR1626016000E1_DXXX, 0395MR1626018000E1_DXXX,
0395MR1626020000E1_DXXX and 0395MR1626023000E1_DXXX.
Fossil forest?

I classify images T1 to T12 below to same class. If Mars had life, was there something like
trees?

Try to run internet image search 'fossil tree' to see that corresponding Earth tree fossils have
striking similarities compared to these objects. Also check Fossil tree web-page by Ph.D. Ian
West: The Purbeck Fossil Forest - 2: The Trees.

Images T2A and T2B are of same objects from different angles. Both in T2A and T2B there is
two objects. The T2, T3, T4 and T5 objects have similar surface texture. The T1 and T2B
interior structures have similarities.

Fig.10.2A. Fossilized trees?

The T-7 Sol 396 objects have interesting surface texture. If T6 would be a tree fossil, it has
about 17 yearly growth rings, meaning it reached age of 17 Martian years, which is 32 Earth
years.

Fig.10.2B.Fossilized trees? Why Spirit candidate has clear yearly rings, but Curiosity
candidates do not?

It has been pointed out by S.Blomqvist (Finland) that on rain forests of Earth at equator, trees do
not produce yearly rings. The rings are produced at latitudes where there are seasonal changes:
growth period and resting period. The tilt of Mars's rotational axis is currently 25 degrees. The
southern winters on Mars are cold since then Mars is 19% further away from Sun than on
southern summer.

The location of Spirit Mars rover is 15 degrees south. The location of Curiosity is 5 degrees
south. Opportunity is 2 degrees south. So the seasonal changes in Spirit site, Gusev crater, are
larger than in Curiosity site, Gale crater. Earlier in history of Mars, the axis tilt may have been
larger than 25 degrees( Universe today June 6, 2008 by Fraser Cain Mars Tilt). This would
increase the seasonal effect.

Blomqvist has developed methods to perform age measurements of tree samples, based on
statistical analysis of the variations in yearly growth rings.
Alternative possibility for T10 below is thrombolite.

Fig.10.2C.Fossilized trees?

The T-12 object, Opportunity Sol 4416, was re-examined closely at Sol 4429 and 4430 (July
2016). Images: Top 1P520223741EFFCQNQP2381L2M1, 1P520223992EFFCQNQP2381L2M1. Below left:
1P521445179ESFCQWRP2533L5M1, Below right: 1P521366440EFFCQWRP2390L2M1
Fossil sea shells ?

The Sol 132, 302, 551, 3, 692, 1032, 1280 objects resemble fossilized sea shells.

Fig.10.3.Sea shells?
Fossil insects ?

One class of objects with similarities is in images B-1..B-4 (Sol 387, 72, 173): If Mars had life,
was there something like insects?

Fig.10.4.Fossil Insects?

Cracks and moisture on Walls

In Sol 1104 there may be active process going on. There is a deep crack on the wall. In the
crack we see also a white vein. In the middle of the crack there is a large hole. There is a wide
light tone color area surrounding the crack. In Sol 1429 we see very similar case. And in
addition we see traces of a flow under the cracks (yellow arrows). And the (new?) light tone
material is covering the old geological formations. Sol 747: do we see wet sand in middle of the
image? Why in images of this area the white veins are in the borders of different color areas?
Are the colors here produced with different microbial species divided in areas by veins? The
geological layers are horizontal. But the wet looking area, veins and color areas are vertical.
Similar case is Sol 1048: Wet stone/sand (A)? Has Curiosity captured in this image active flow
of something(B)? There is some similarities in objects in Sol 710, 528 and 529: All located in
shadows in a cave like crack. Are there tracks on the sand in Sol 710 image? The Sol 173 has
small yellow tone round objects on the stone. In Sol 1167 Curiosity has driven over a stone
revealing the underground part of the stone: Moisture? Note the colors in underground part.

Fig.10.6. Cracks and moisture on Walls

In Sol 1495 Curiosity images, Murray Buttes area, there is white material on shadow side walls.
They are on top of the old geological formations. In nearby Sol 1489 we see similar formations
very close to Curiosity.

Fig.10.7. White material on the walls.

Underground bugs?
It has been speculated that underground conditions in Mars could be suitable for life forms
resembling bugs and worms. The Sol 765 image A has underground soil as result of a sample
drilling. Here we see 2 shiny, yellow tone and partly transparent objects. The larger one has
symmetric shape. In image D Sol 765, Curiosity created a pile of underground soil. Images B,
C, E and F are from the center of this pile during two days. In Sol 767 images B and E there is
small shiny objects which are not visible two days earlier, Sol 765 images C and F. In image G,
Sol 69 we see also a shiny object which was in underground soil.
In Sol-794 image there is a hole on the wall. Under the hole there is a pile of fine grained sand
on the ground. The Sol 826 is of same hole one month later. Interesting question to ask here is:
Which one was first here: The hole or the vein? You could argue that the vein continues also
below the hole, so the hole must have appeared later. In Sol-796 images there seems to be
similar cases. In Sol 842 image there is two similar interesting holes in the sand. In embedded
Sol 271 image you can compare the holes to holes produced by Curiosity’s laser.

Fig.10.8. Bugs?
Now I do some wild speculation: Let’s assume for a while that the Sol-765 object would really
be a Martian bug. Then what does it eat? If the white veins are chemolithiautotrophic microbes
then that could be biological material to use as nutrient. And that would be the reason to see
holes associated with the white veins. The Martian bugs would be eating their way through the
veins. And the bugs would mostly stay underground because there they are protected from
radiation and also the night temperature underground is warmer compared to air temperature
at night. The bug in Sol-765 would be a dead one because the drill of Curiosity insured it or the
higher radiation level on the surface killed it. In Sol-765 MAHLI archive there is images of this
object during 10 minutes time. During that time this object has not moved. Another issue to note
is this area stones with holes there is same color sand as the stone just around the stones, for
example in Sol 842 image 0842MR0037460100500901E01_DXXX. This may mean that the
sand has been produced from the stone recently. End of wild speculation.

In these same sand piles there are also other interesting changes during 10 days in images
below. Related to changes is maybe following physical processes: The originally wet sand pile
is drying and shrinking and wind may move grains. Most of the small stones have remained
exactly in same position. Some of the stones are in different position after 10 days. Average
wind speed at Gale crater is about 7 meters per second [107]. But if air pressure is so low, how
can the wind cause enough force to move some of the stones? Is it possible that the air pressure
is much higher?

Fig.10.9.Sand piles
In Sol 853 images below, December 30 2014, there is interesting change during one hour. There
is an object moving.

In second row, the Sol-869 (16th of January 2015) first image has been taken in daylight. The
second image is during night, with Curiosity’s LED light. The shiny object has changed shape
in 5 hours. In night image it covers larger area. Sol 895: Hollow spherule??

Fig.10.10. Bugs?
Another interesting phenomenon (related or not) is visible on the deck of Curiosity on Sol-765
and Sol-1061 (1st of Aug 2015) images. Below we see some sand and dust on the deck. But
there is also interesting clean tracks going through the dust. We see some small objects on the
other end of some of the tracks. Can small stones moving on the deck cause these?

If vibration is causing small stones to move, why does the dust not move and cover the tracks?
The stones are probably sliding instead of rolling. There is similar phenomenon on the ground
in Sol 1065 MAHLI image. In Sol 1121 image the arrow points to track part where we possibly
see daily movement.

Could it be that moisture of air freezes to the deck on nighttime? In the morning when
temperature rises the deck becomes slippery and the stones slide a small distance? In Sol 1425
we see movement of the object during 3 minutes and 39 seconds. Other stones stand still. But
this one slides through thick dust layer. Note that shadows are short, so the Sun is high up, and
there should be no more any kind of ice causing movement. The tracks of objects in Sols 765,
1061 and 1425 are smooth. The track of irregular shape object in sol 1121 has more
randomness.

Fig.10.11.Sliding stones on deck of Curiosity?

Dr. Lyall Winston Small has similar observations in his SmugMug Mars image archive [143],
close to Phoenix lander 2008. The images below are from Winston’s SmugMug site with his
permission. Study the Sol 40 and 28 objects and the tracks closely. Compare the tracks to tracks
on Curiosity's deck. And the Sol 19 object, which was not there before. ..and think...and check
in this Phoenix archive what happens in Martian soil under microscopic camera of Phoenix in
Sol 137 and other similar images in the archive.

Fig.10.12. Phoenix site. Moving symmetrical object leaving a track behind in Sol 40.
Various objects
In this chapter is observations of interesting objects without classification yet. In Sol 812 and
809 we can see interesting patterns in surface. In sol 886 drilling hole walls in same area we see
that this pattern is three dimensional and it continues deeper. On Sol 1489 image we see best
close-up of thin flat surfaces covering stones. These have been on the walls in some other areas
also.

Fig.10.13. Various objects.

Images Sol 533 and Sol 542 have something similar and exceptional compared to all images
taken by Mars rovers. Sol 181 has besides white veins a lot of interesting same size round
depressions on the ground of ancient sea floor. Proposal for Sol 65 object origin was that maybe
from Curiosity rover itself. The Sol 1087 object is similar in shape and color and is close to
1095 object.

Fig.10.14. Various objects

Interpretation of the images
My interpretation of the images presented so far is: Mars has had life and it still has.

The key here is the theory by Steven Benner, that the RNA, the DNA and life was born in Mars
and transported to the Earth with meteorites. The life based on same the DNA on Earth and
Mars would have same origin: Mars. This would explain why we see same kind of animal and
plant fossils on Mars as we have on the Earth. The publications by science teams linked on this
article also support the view that Mars is habitable and has had and may have life even today.

Instead of Benner’s theory of life born on Mars the panspermia theory by Fred Hoyle and
Chandra Wickramasinghe could explain the observations from Mars maybe even better. That
would take maybe one billion years or more away from time scale of birth of life: microbes
based on same DNA would be available everywhere in our solar system when planetary bodies
cooled enough. The theory by Benner is actually a subset of panspermia theory.

The structural Newberries (Opportunity, Sol 3064) could be fossil remains of plant-life in Mars.
How far did evolution proceed in Mars? The animal fossils (Curiosity Sol-186, 107, 109)look
like something similar we had on Earth seas before the time of dinosaurs. In Mars today
microbial life would still remain (Sol-304). The microbes today can be of type
chemolithoautotrophs and methanogens. The Sol-173 white objects which grow in size and the
Blueberries resemble fungi.

In the images of this article, I count about 20 species of past life and about 16 species of
currently living primitive life forms.
Below is summary image for candidates of currently living species on Mars (resembling
microbial colonies, lichens and fungi ..and possibly small bugs).

Fig.11.1.Candidates for current life on Mars.

Below is summary image for candidates of ancient species on Mars (stromatolites, multicellular
higher life forms, both plants and animals).

Fig.11.2.Candidates for past life on Mars.

Let’s assume that this interpretation that Mars has been a planet with seas, thick atmosphere and
higher level life would be correct. Then has Mars had oxygen in its atmosphere in past? In Earth
plant life, sea planktons and cyanobacteria produced oxygen to the atmosphere. This made
possible the evolution of oxygen breathing animals on Earth. When looking at these images of
plant and animal fossils at Mars, we could assume that same happened also in Mars. Today of
course Mars has only a thin atmosphere having 95 % carbon dioxide and only 0.13 % oxygen.

According to Agnès Cousin of the Research Institute in Astrophysics and Planetology in

Toulouse, France, the Couriosity analysis of Mars rock, indicate high manganese oxide content,
which is an indication that Mars had high oxygen content in past. See article: New Scientist, 22-
4-2016, Andy Coghlan, First direct evidence of ancient Mars’s oxygen-rich atmosphere.

Curiosity, Darwin, Vikings and Planetary Protection

Curiosity and Charles Darwin, and writing between the lines
When Curiosity had been few months in Mars, Curiosity principal investigator John Grotzinger
announced that they will keep a press meeting about findings. Pre-information was that they
will be ' Earth shaking and for the History books'( Universe Today 20.11.2012: Has Curiosity
Made an ‘Earth-Shaking’ Discovery?).Week went by and meeting came. The scientists were
quite quiet. Normal things of Curiosity ongoing mission were told. Looks like at last minute
they decided not to tell the Earth Shaking news. But in meeting it was mentioned that the
conditions in Mars are such that if there is signs of past life, they would be well preserved. Now
things have been processed further. We have theory by Steven Benner to explain findings. We
know that life, in form of microbes carried by meteorites, survive the trip from Mars to Earth.
We have explanation why life on Mars resembles life on Earth.

NASA has been strangely cautious in telling about findings related to possible life on Mars.
Some clarification about NASAs policy for publishing news is given by this interview of John
Grotzinger, November 2012: Big News From Mars? Rover Scientists Mum For Now. So NASA
scientists cannot tell about their findings until they have done a scientific publication, for
instance in the Science magazine or in conference like Lunar and Planetary Science Conference
(LPSC). They are not allowed to speak even to family members at home. Rather strange rules
by NASA in science world. There should be open and free discussion in science. Just looking at
pictures in this article you could say that Mars is a planet of past and current life. And that Mars
has gone through a long evolution process producing higher forms of life, not just microbes.

NASA gives almost all pictures of Mars-rovers to archives for anybody to see. Curiosity has
produced 481000 pictures, Opportunity 226000 and Spirit 128000. Only the amount of pictures,
835000, is huge. And then there is all the science data from instruments. It takes time to analyze
all the data and produce science publications.

On 9th of December 2013 Curiosity science teams published 6 remarkable articles in Science
magazine. The main message of these articles is that Mars has been habitable. It had good
conditions for Life. In these articles it is also told that the chemical analysis instruments
onboard Curiosity found organic compounds on the samples. And also life is given as one
possible explanation alternative for white veins and nodules discovered by Curiosity. See
Science magazine Curiosity web-page: http://www.sciencemag.org/site/extra/curiosity/ and
there article New Results Send Mars Rover on a Quest for Ancient Life.

On December 30 2013 the Curiosity principal investigator John Grotzinger wrote a very
interesting blog: Habitability, Taphonomy, and Curiosity’s Hunt for Organic Carbon. For first
time, in relation to Mars, he discusses fossils and Charles Darwin's evolution theory , which
Darwin published in 1859 in his book On the Origin of Species. Taphonomy is the term
paleontologists use to describe how organisms become fossilized. John tells also in his blog
about the history of science, how it was difficult to prove the evolution theory correct on planet
Earth. It took 100 years in scientific community to establish evolution theory.

John Grotzinger explains in 24th of January 2014 Science magazine web-article Habitability,
Taphonomy, and the Search for Organic Carbon on Mars that they have certain principles for
searching life on Mars. Curiosity has a lot of science instruments and chemical analysis
instruments. The analysis results must show that Mars was habitable and had good conditions
for life. If analysis would show that conditions for life in Mars were impossible, then there
would be a big contradiction to see fossils in the images in Curiosity and Opportunity. The
remarkable thing is that in 9.12.2013 publications in Science magazine it is shown that Mars
was habitable and had good conditions for life.

Interesting meeting concerning Mars was 17-21 of March 2014 in Woodlands, Texas: 45th
Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. In this meeting over 300 articles concerning Mars was
published. Detailed analysis results of Curiosity and Opportunity chemistry data was presented.
Several studies and laboratory test results of how micro-organisms survive in conditions of
planet Mars was presented. In this link You can access all the abstracts. Check also the test
results from International Space Station, which showed that microbes survived during 1.5 years
test period in extreme conditions of empty space: Space Station Research Shows That Hardy
Little Space Travelers Could Colonize Mars.

On 28th of September 2015 NASA held a press conference to announce the confirmation of
liquid water on today’s Mars. In the introductory speech of the conference astronaut John
Grunsfeld, Science Mission Directorate, says:

We try to answer fundamental questions..are we alone....we send astrobiologists and planetary

scientists to Mars....to explore the question is there current life on Mars..

What is remarkable is that the chemistry and low atmospheric pressure of Mars keeps the water
liquid in temperature range -70 degrees Celsius to +10 degrees Celsius. That means that at
equator of Mars the water mixed in the soil is in liquid state almost all the time. And there is
moisture in the air. This gives good conditions for life on present day Mars. So the old official
view by NASA that Mars is a dry and lifeless planet is now swept away. The implications for
life on Mars and planetary protection were taken up in the conference frequently. The liquid
water was identified by investigating Recurring Slope Lineae (RSL), which are traces of water
flow. There is RSL activity also in Gale Crater close to Curiosity, according to article: Icarus
2015, Colin M. Dundas, Alfred S. McEwen, Slope activity in Gale crater, Mars.
See also articles: Universe Today, by Ken Kremer on September 28, 2015: NASA Discovers
Salty Liquid Water Flows Intermittently on Mars Today, Bolstering Chance for Life and
NASA, 28.9.2015, NASA Confirms Evidence That Liquid Water Flows on Today’s Mars. And
see 7th of October 2015 blog post Patrick Rowan's Skywatch: Mars has liquid water, could it
have life?

Vikings 1976 - Evidence for Microbial Life on Mars

The NASA Viking space crafts landed on Mars planet in 1976. These 2 landers carried the first
ever instruments to analyze possible existence of life on Mars: Labeled Release (LR)
experiment. The LR instrument was designed by Gilbert V. Levin and Patricia Ann Straat . The
principle in LR experiment is that sample containing possible microorganisms, is given
radioactive food. If sample contains microorganisms then radioactive gas, which can be
observed, is released from the sample. Gilbert and co-investigator Patricia Ann Straat found out
from LR data that both Viking landers about 7000 kilometers from each other gave positive
result for existence of microbial life in Mars.

These results and the test setup have been heavily debated after that. Unfortunately, for some
reason, for very long time NASA has tried to disprove the results from LR experiment and state
that "Mars is a dead planet". Now seeing the new experimental and visual evidence for life on
Mars by Curiosity and Opportunity, it can be concluded that Gilbert and Patricia, with Viking
LR data, were the first ones to discover microbial life on another planet, Mars. Achievement
worth of Nobel prize.

Barry DiGregorio, Gilbert Levin and Patricia Ann Straat wrote 1997 the astrobiology classic
MARS The Living Planet and later 2011 update The Microbes of Mars . Year 2019 Patricia
wrote an excellent book To Mars with Love about LR experiment.
Read also: Gilbert V. Levin: Chapter Nine - Life After Viking: The Evidence Mounts and Barry E. DiGregorio: The Viking Labeled
Release experiment controversey: Why does it exist and when will it end? and Gilbert V. Levin 2016, Extant Life on Mars: Resolving
the Issues.

Fig.12.1.The Vikings.
The Vikings contained 4 main experiments. The LR, GEx and PR which were life detection
experiments and Gas chromatograph GCMS. These were tested extensively with samples from
Antarctica, Death Valley desert and Moon before sending them to Mars. The LR was the most
sensitive. It could detect 10 living bacteria in a sample. The GCMS needed one million
microbes in a sample. Only LR could detect life from Antarctica deep ice samples. The GCMS
was having problems already at Earth test and it failed frequently in Mars. It was not even sure
if samples went inside GCMS. Despite of that NASA has stated that "Vikings did not detect
life", since GCMS did not detect organic matter. Curiosity has detected large amounts of
organic matter [32, 108]. Dr. Jennifer Eigenbrode from the Curiosity organics team has stated
that “organics are all over Mars, all over the surface, and probably through the rock record".
Read Jennifer L. Eigenbrode, et all , Science June 2018: Organic matter preserved in 3-billion-
year-old mudstones at Gale crater, Mars. The Phoenix lander 2009 mission results have
indicated that even Viking GCMS results show organics on Mars [109]. See also article in
Universe Today by Paul Patton, January 6, 2015: Defining Life II: Metabolism and Evolution as
clues to Extraterrestrial Life. I quote the article, stating about Viking experiments: ...All three
experiments produced what seemed like positive results. However, most scientists rejected this
interpretation because the details of many of the results could be explained by supposing that
there were chemical oxidizing agents in the soil instead of life, and because Viking failed to
detect organic materials in Martian soil. This interpretation, especially for the labeled release
experiment, remains controversial to this day and may need to be revisited based on recent
findings.

In Mars LR made totally 9 tests with all interesting and clear positive results. The LR
experiment contained also a method to verify that results are not caused by chemistry of Mars.
A control sample was heated to 160 degrees to kill any living microorganisms. After heating to
160 degrees the sample gave a negative result indicating that microbes had died. The really
interesting results came when samples was heated only to 46 and 51 degrees. The 51 degree
heating lead to positive result of 10 percent compared to sample without heating. The 46 degree
heating gave positive result of 30 percent. This would indicate that the temperature where
Martian microbes start to die is around 50 degrees Celsius. Similar results in Earth are got with
E.Coli bacteria. One overlooked GEx result was that in the experiment the sample did take in
carbon dioxide and oxygen was released. Currently Mars has 0.13 percent oxygen content. Mars
leaks this to space so a source generating the oxygen in Mars is needed. All the details about
these experiments can be read in the books MARS The Living Planet by DiGregorio and To
Mars with Love by Ann Straat. Carl Sagan was going to write a review of DiGregorio’s book,
but he died before he had change to do it.

Curiosity rover has observed that the oxygen levels behave the same way as methane levels at
Gale crater. They rise to higher level during spring and summer. The rise in oxygen levels is 30
percent. This could be a sign of photosynthetic life. Check for example the blue green material
covering stones in these Curiosity Sol 1594 and 1596 images in my Mars photo library. And see
the article Universe Today November 2019, Evan Gough Molecular Oxygen on Mars is
Behaving Unusually Through the Seasons. A Sign of Life?. Original publication by Curiosity
science team: Melissa Trainer(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center) et.al, Journal of
Geophysical Research: Planets, 2019: Seasonal variations in atmospheric composition as
measured in Gale Crater, Mars. Quote from the summary: Geophysical and geochemical results
have painted a picture of a formerly habitable planet billions of years in Mars’ past, and
measurements of current processes provide indications that Mars may still potentially harbor
habitable environments.

The statements of individual prominent scientists about LR experiment result can be checked
from article Gilbert V. Levin, Astrobiology 2015: The Curiousness of Curiosity. See also
Gilberts analysis of preliminary data from Curiosity: 8 July 2013, SPIE Newsroom: Evidence
for microbial life on Mars?. And Universe Today July 22nd of 2015 article Mars?, where Matt
Williams refers to Gilbert's analysis as "The results of the biological experiments on board the
Viking landers were inconclusive, but a reanalysis of the Viking data published in 2012
suggested signs of microbial life on Mars.". At the end of same article Matt comments on the
images by current Mars rovers and orbiters: "..They have also shown that organic life can and
most likely did live on Mars at one time."

See also YouTube videos by Gilbert V.Levin and Barry DiGregorio:

28.8.2015 Dr. Gil Levin - 18th Annual International Mars Society Convention (30 minutes)
3.8.2014 But Wait! We've already Found Life on Mars! (24 minutes)
21.6.2010 Life on Mars Interview with Barry DiGregorio and Dr. Gilbert Levin (9 minutes)
3.9.2010 Gilbert V. Levin commentary on the book MARS: THE LIVING PLANET (8
minutes)

And read an excellent articles based on Gilbert V.Levin's interview by Patrick Rowan(USA),
5th of July 2016: Patrick Rowan's Skywatch: 40 years after Viking landing questions remain
about life on Mars and 2nd of August 2016: Patrick Rowan's Skywatch: Is NASA running away
from life on Mars?.

On October 1st 2016 Gilbert V. Levin and Patricia Ann Straat published article in Astrobiology:
The Case for Extant Life on Mars and Its Possible Detection by the Viking Labeled Release
Experiment. Dr. Levin and Dr. Ann Straat get strong support from Chris McKay, PhD, Senior
Editor of Astrobiology and an astrobiologist with NASA Ames Research Center in article:
Mary Ann Liebert, Oct 18 2016: Microbial life on Mars: The possibility must be considered
conclude researchers in Astrobiology . Gilbert and Patricia conclude in their article a
recommendation for future Mars research: We strongly recommend that life-seeking
experiments be considered for future missions. These should include the continued search for
organic molecules of biological importance (e.g., amino acids, simple carbohydrates, lipids,
DNA, protein); the conduct of further metabolic experiments, including a search for chiral
preference in metabolism; the close examination of any tantalizing surface features; and
perhaps even microscopic examination of martian soil with and without the addition of water or
water vapor, reminiscent of the experiments of Antony van Leeuwenhock, who discovered the
phenomenon of cryptobiosis approximately 300 years ago (Clegg, 2001).

I like the especially including "the close examination of any tantalizing surface features", which
is the main content of my visual study. Read also a good article by Levin in Scientific
American blog 10th of October 2019: I’m Convinced We Found Evidence of Life on Mars in
the 1970s and an interesting article on ICAMSR web site: Will the MSR be infected by the
COVID-19?.

Curiosity Extended mission 2015-2019

Curiosity Extended mission started in October 2015 and lasts to 2019. UK Space Agency
supported (and was ready to fund) a new life detection program by Dr. DiGregorio and
Dr.Levin “A search for extant endolithic and hypolithic microbial communities” to be included
in extended mission: July 23 2015 University of Buckingham Astrobiologists Endorsed by UK
Space Agency to Look for Life on Mars . The program uses Curiosity’s instruments and
cameras to detect and study currently living micro-organisms in Mars. Totally there was 89
proposals submitted and 6 of them selected. This proposal was not selected. However Curiosity
team has used this proposal on May 2016. Read: Barry E. DiGregorio: 1st of June 2016: New
NASA close-up images of freshly broken open rocks by the Curiosity rover wheels could
incidentally verify that the 1976 Viking Mission found microbial life.
Chlorophyll and Fatty Acids observations
Year 2002 Dr. Carol Stoker (NASA Ames Research Center) found in Mars Pathfinder mission
1997 data that two areas close to Pathfinder had the spectral signature of chlorophyll. Read:
David Whitehouse, BBC News 2002: Life on Mars hopes raised. Chlorophyll is a biomolecule,
critical in photosynthesis, which allows plants to absorb energy from light. Chlorophyll is
closely related green pigments found in cyanobacteria and the chloroplasts of algae and plants.

Unfortunately these results were not published for a reason, which I handle later in chapter
Colors in Mars. Same unfortunate happened to Dr. Daniel Glavin about finding molecules like
those in all microbiological membranes (fatty acids), in Curiosity results 2015. Read: Paul
Rincon, BBC News 2015: Possible fatty acid detected on Mars.

Both chlorophyll and fatty acids are strong bio indicators. And finding them in Mars is
consistent with positive results of Viking LR experiment.

Visual Evidence for Life on Mars

In this article I have collected Curiosity and Opportunity images, which in my opinion clearly
show visual evidence for past and present life on Mars. In the images we see objects which
change shape over time, grow, are not covered by dust, and look like life. And if we think of
Steven Benner’s theory of life born on Mars these images just confirm the theory by Benner or
the Panspermia theory.

Fig.12.2. Visual evidence.

In my view the animal fossils (Curiosity Sol-109,Sol-186) and the structural Newberries
(Opportunity Sol 3064,Sol 3247) is easy to interpret as past life. The Newberries have internal
and external fine structure which is repeated in 2 places far away from each other. It is
interesting to see from animal fossils that in Mars evolution has produced 2 eyes for animals as
in Earth. Having stereo vision helps to survive in three dimensional world. Was life on Mars
only in oceans? Did it move to land? Fossil in Sol 109 looks like sea animal. Sol 186 fossil may
have certain land like feature.
White objects which change their shape (Sol-173) and the Blueberries may be something like
fungi. The Sol-304 object may be stone and minerals eating microbes classified as
chemolithoautotrophs. In many places in Mars ground there is white veins with nodules (Sol-
192, Sol-270). And from drilling picture of Sol-270 the veins seem to go deep inside ground.
For the first time NASA gives as possible explanation for these microbes in article published in
Science magazine 9.12.2013: 'A Habitable Fluvio-Lacustrine Environment at Yellowknife Bay,
Gale Crater, Mars'. Fresh results from Curiosity and from laboratory experiments may indicate
Methanogen type microbes in Martian soil. Whatever species there exists now in Mars, they
have got long time to adapt to current conditions of Mars.

Microbial life just below the surface and on the surface transforms the landscape of Mars during
millions of years. And it is also a force causing erosion. The landscape of Mars is surprisingly
fresh looking. And there is very little dust covering the surface, especially when looking the
images, which are correctly white balanced. The traces of current microbial life is in practice
visible in almost every image taken by Mars rovers.

NASA has stated that Curiosity is not equipped with life detection instruments. And that images
prove nothing in Mars (..but on other planets images are very important: Pluto,..). Now when it
seems that there is visible life on the surface of Mars i think that both Curiosity and Opportunity
are well equipped to detect life. They have excellent cameras. And then all the instruments in
addition. “If You want to find life, then look for life!”, said Dr. Levin in 18th Annual
International Mars Society Convention, August 2015.

About natural resources at Mars: If Mars has long history of life, does it have fossil fuels
underground? Oil? Natural gas (=methane)? There is already 2-6 percent of water mixed in the
ground so manned missions do not have to bring water from Earth. Interesting article
11.12.2013 in Universe Today about liquid water on Mars equator is this: Is There Martian
Salty Water At The Red Planet’s Equator? These Lines May Be The Smoking Gun.

In figure 12.3, Sol 17 image by Opportunity we see that the Blueberries color the landscape
with dark blue tone. In chapter Blueberries we saw that one option for Blueberries is Martian
fungi. From the orbit of Mars we see large dark areas, like Sinus Meridiani. And Opportunity is
located in a dark area. Could it be that Blueberries, possibly a living thing, is the reason for
large dark areas of Mars? If so the dark areas would indicate directly where the largest liquid
water resources are on Mars. There are seasonal changes in the dark areas of Mars. The dark
areas are largest when there is spring and summer and the melted polar ice cap has released lots
of moisture to the air. Next time, when you take your telescope and point it to Mars, and you
see those dark areas on Mars, you may wonder: "Do I see now Blueberry fields, extraterrestrial
life, with my own eyes?"
Fig.12.3.Blueberry fields.

Excellent, freely readable, observations about life on Mars is by Dr. Lyall Winston Small,
September 2015 book: On Debris Flows and Mineral Veins - Where surface life resides on
Mars and 2012 book In search of life on Mars. And 2015 book The Living Rocks of Mars.

Planetary Protection and Ethics

Is it wise to make missions to bring samples of Mars to Earth? Or at first make manned
missions with return tickets? Can Martian microbes harm life on Earth if they are released from
laboratory by accident? Martian Microbes, Viruses and Bacteria can be pathogens, for which we
humans and other life forms on Earth have no resistance.

These questions lead us to subject of planetary protection, which was promoted already in 1973
by well-known scientist Carl Sagan. When Columbus discovered America, largest part (90%) of
Indian population were killed by diseases carried by Europeans. If we go to Mars, can our
microbes cause harm to current Mars life? The Russian (Soviet Union back then) Mars2 crashed
and Mars3 landed to Martian surface in 1971. At that time Russia did not care about
international COSPAR spacecraft sterilization agreements [63]. Read more about these issues at
International Committee Against Mars Sample Return , led by astrobiologist Barry
E.DiGregorio.
Fig.12.4.Planetary Protection.

It is possible that the current Martian life forms could radically change the biology on Earth.
They could even cause mass extinctions for species on Earth, including us humans. Now we
should postpone the planned manned missions to Mars. Instead we should first carefully
investigate the biological properties of Martian life forms. We could establish a test laboratory
in the orbit of Mars or in the Moon. In laboratory we could test what happens when life-forms
of Mars and Earth get into contact. Because of new findings from Mars, in March 2014 it has
been proposed that the rules concerning Special Regions on Mars should be updated:
D.W.Beaty and J.D.Rummel 2014: Introduction to an updated analysis of planetary protection
“Special regions” on Mars. Despite of all the tremendous risks for Life on Earth, NASA is
planning for a Mars sample return with its Mars 2020 mission which will collect the samples for
later returning them to Earth. NASA must be fully aware of the risks. The official view of
NASA has been for a long time "There is no proof for life on Mars, so there are no risks" (?).

You could argue that risk is small because microbial exchange with meteors has been going on
all the time between Earth and Mars. But when was the last major exchange? When dinosaurs
died on Earth? We should be cautious. Think about how microbes like Ebola can change just in
few decades in Earth. And then think about risk of taking one million microbes with maybe
1000 new types of viruses and bacteria with unknown properties from Mars to Earth. The risk
for failure in returning them safely to laboratory in Earth may be as high as 30 percent. Instead
we may accidentally spread Martian microbes in Earth’s atmosphere, sea or soil and then they
start to multiply. Our technology for making safe entry from space to surface of Earth is not
mature enough yet. The NASA Genesis sample return mission crashed on Utah 2004 as the
parachute did not open, spreading the samples on the desert.
When considering possible risk of Martian microbes to the Earth, it is often stated that Martian
microbes would not survive the higher temperature of the Earth. That statement may be
completely wrong. The average temperature of Mars is low. But during the day at equator of
Mars, the soil temperature can be several hours + 36 degrees Celsius. So the Martian microbes
survive large daily temperature variations of -80 C to +36 C. So they would survive well in
most environments on the Earth. And the conditions at Earth could be actually excellent for
Martian microbes to start aggressive expansion on Earth biosphere. The fast adaptivity of
bacteria to changing environments can be read from: Science Alert Oct 2017, Fiona
MacDonald: One of The Biggest Evolution Experiments Ever Has Followed 68,000
Generations of Bacteria.

Between Permian and Triassic period 250 million years ago life on Earth experienced severe
mass extinction. Close to 70 percent of terrestrial animal and plant life and 96 percent of sea life
died on Earth. It took 10 million years for Earth life to recover with new species emerging.
Recent studies have suggested that new type of methanogen bacteria and sulfur interacting
bacteria changing the biosphere of the Earth may have played main role in that catastrophic
event (See wikipedia: Permian–Triassic extinction event). Can we allow NASA to take the risk
of bringing Martian microbes with unknown properties directly to Earth?

NASA, Mars One company and SpaceX company are aiming to send first humans to Mars in
2020-2030 decades. The first astronauts in Mars cannot avoid the contact with Martian viruses
and bacteria. This may shorten their expected lifetime in Mars dramatically. The biological
waste produced by humans is spread into Martian soil. Our Earth microbes will start to spread
on Mars, changing the current ecosystem of Mars. It can be questioned how ethical this is? Do
we have the right to replace or mix the current life on Mars, with life from Earth? NASA
management and SpaxeX can keep their current plans of conquering Mars without ethical
problems only by keep on claiming that there is no life on Mars. The two way traffic planned
by SpaxeX owner billionaire Elon Musk will certainly mix the life forms between Earth and
Mars. How it is possible that Musk is allowed to break all the COSPAR Planetary Protection
rules? Wake up Elon Musk!

According to international law, UN Space Treaty: United Nations Treaties and Principles on
Outer Space (2002 Update) and the COSPAR Planetary Protection Policy (2011 Update) ,
NASA and SpaceX are not allowed decide themselves about Mars sample return or sending
people to another planet having its own life. These issues must be handled in United Nations.
Of course it is a problem that NASA and SpaceX have already spent billions of dollars for
planned Mars missions, which now should be modified. Also the political leadership of USA
has accepted the NASA manned Mars missions [111]. Currently NASA management acts
against UN Space Treaty, Part one, Section E, Article 5, Clause 3:

 In carrying out activities under this Agreement, States Parties shall promptly inform the
Secretary-General, as well as the public and the international scientific community, of
any phenomena they discover in outer space, including the Moon, which could endanger
human life or health, as well as of any indication of organic life.
Interesting and comprehensive article about planetary protection is the one linked below, year
2016. Dr. John D. Rummel was NASA’s Planetary Protection Officer until 2006. He has chaired
COSPAR’s Panel on Planetary Protection years 1999-2014. Dr. Catharine A. Conley has been
NASA’s Planetary Protection Officer from 2006. Dr. Margaret S. Race works for SETI
institute, in field of planetary protection, especially Earth and Mars.

Mission to Mars: The Integration of Planetary Protection Requirements and Medical Support,
2016 by
John D. Rummel, Ph.D, Institute for Coastal Science and Policy, East Carolina University
Margaret S. Race, Ph.D, SETI Institute
Catharine A. Conley, Ph.D, Science Mission Directorate, NASA
David R. Liskowsky, Ph.D, Office of the Chief Health and Medical Officer, NASA

Does this article by Rummel, Race, Conley and Liskowsky show a change towards a stricter
handling of planetary protection issues in coming Mars missions? I hope so. On January 2018
Lisa M. Pratt was appointed as new planetary protection officer of NASA. The Planetary
Protection issues in European Space Agency(ESA) are taken care of by Planetary Protection
officer Gerhard Kminek. See article: Scientific American, November 30, 2016: NASA Outlines
Planetary Protection Priorities. And see 2015 workshop report by M.Race, J.Johnson, J.Spry,
B.Siegel and C.Conley: Planetary Protection Knowledge Gaps for Human Extraterrestrial
Missions . Also J.D. Rummel participated the workshop. The planetary protection officers
Conley and Kminek, hopefully do good work in this matter. See also comprehensive article by
Robert Walker, March 2016: Can We Risk Microbes From Human Crashes - On Mars? If Not,
What Happens To Dreams To Colonize The Planet?. And read article by Dr. Kelly Smith, May
2016: Do no harm to life on Mars? Ethical limits of Prime Directive. Dr. Kelly Smith is
Professor of Philosophy & Biological Sciences in Clemson University. He organizes conference
series Social and Conceptual Issues in Astrobiology.

Funded by European Comission there is EURO-CARES project , which is planning to build

facilities for astromaterials potentially containing extraterrestrial life. Samples from Mars would
be stored there. It is worrying to see this kind of preparations. See related article, Neel V. Patel
November 17, 2016 Inverse: Alien Lifeforms Will Have an Apartment in Europe.

Changing planet Mars back to habitable planet for mankind (Terraforming) has been studied for
a long time. A good article about this is by Christopher P. McKay, 2007: Planetary
Ecosynthesis on Mars: Restoration Ecology and Environmental Ethics. According to the report
Mars can warmed up with super-greenhouse gases in 100 years. Producing breathable oxygen
atmosphere with microbes and plants would take from few thousands of years to 100000 years.
McKay has great thoughts about ethics and what to do in case we find life on Mars. McKay is
working in Curiosity Science team.
Fig.12.5. Terraforming.

It is possible that even the planet Mars is not the origin of life in our Solar System. It is possible
that our solar system received the original seed of Life carried by meteorites, from some other
nearby stars having life on its planets. The original term for this theory is panspermia. This kind
of idea was presented for first time by creek philosopher Anaksagoras 500 BC. Modern
versions of panspermia have been developed by Svante Arrhenius, Sir Fred Hoyle and Chandra
Wickramasinghe. Chandra is the director of Buckingham Centre for Astrobiology. Interesting
articles about panspermia are W.M.Napier and N.C.Wickramasinghe 2010: Mechanisms for
Panspermia and Rhawn Joseph and Rudolf Schild 2010: Origins, Evolution, and Distribution of
Life in the Cosmos: Panspermia, Genetics, Microbes, and Viral Visitors From the Stars.
Another interesting article is by Rhawn Joseph 2014: Life on Mars? Evidence for Moisture,
Algae, Fungi, and Lichens on the Red Planet?.

Read also article by Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe, May 7, 2016: Evidence of life outside
the Earth. In this article Professor Wickramasinghe gives a good view to current situation
concerning extraterrestrial life.

In September 2015 the research result about life on early Earth was published:
Elizabeth A. Bella, 2015: Potentially biogenic carbon preserved in a 4.1 billion-year-old zircon
and
UCLA Newsroom October 19 2015: Life on Earth likely started at least 4.1 billion years ago —
much earlier than scientists had thought .
According to this research, life started very soon on Earth. And Earth may have been much
cooler in the beginning as we have thought. This report and the observations from Mars both
point to direction of panspermia theory. Seeds of life, microbes, were available already in the
beginning when our solar system was born. And think about the consequences if panspermia is
correct. The mechanism of panspermia has not vanished anywhere. That would mean that
interstellar microbes are arriving to the atmosphere of Earth even today. That is an issue which
could be observed and which probably has been observed in high altitude sampling experiments
by BCAB scientists, read: Milton Wainwright, N Chandra Wickramasinghe, Christopher E
Rose, Alexander J Baker 2014, Recovery of Cometary Microorganisms from the Stratosphere
.There is also Japanese Tanpopo astrobiology experiment going on onboard International Space
Station, trying to observe interplanetary microbes.

These discoveries by Curiosity and Opportunity are changing our view of the Universe. They
belong to same series as "Earth is round" and "Earth goes around the Sun". They lead us to
answer the question "Are we alone ?". Our Milky Way galaxy may have 100 billion planets in
zone of life around their stars. In our solar system we have Earth and Mars in zone of life. And
the ocean of Jupiter’s moon Europa is also very interesting, as well as the Saturn's moons
Enceladus and Titan.

Fig.12.6. Europa, Enceladus and Titan.

Previously it was thought that the birth of life is extremely difficult and we may be totally alone
in whole universe. In 1960s the Drake equation was developed, and then estimate was that we
may have 10 civilizations in our galaxy. In 2012 Claudio Maccone made estimate 4590
civilizations, and the closest one could be at 2700 light years distance. After finding life on
Mars, and realizing how meteorites may carry seeds of life over vast distances, what will be the
next estimate for the amount of civilizations?

After reading this article You may have a worry, that can Earth lose major part of its
atmosphere as Mars did, especially because of climate change ? Answer is: No. The diameter of
Mars is half of Earths diameter and the gravity is much smaller on Mars (38% of the Earth
gravity). Most probably Mars gradually leaked its atmosphere to space because of low gravity,
lack of magnetic field and the solar wind. The gravity of Earth is stronger to keep our
atmosphere and Earth’s magnetic field protects atmosphere from solar wind. Another thing is
what happens to Earth after one billion years, when our Sun enters next development phase.

MAVEN spacecraft by NASA entered Mars orbit in September 2014 Mars orbit to find out
more about the reason why Mars lost its atmosphere. Below is image by MAVEN about
distribution of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen in atmosphere of Mars.
Fig.12.7. Maven results. Distribution of atomic carbon, oxygen and hydrogen around Mars.
Clouds of Mars in ultraviolet light.
More Observations
Images from the Orbit of Mars
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) by NASA has been in orbit of Mars since 2006. It is
also used as radio link for Curiosity. MRO has a high resolution camera HiRISE = High
Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, which can image surface of Mars with 30 centimeters
resolution. With the ESP and PSP archive identity number you can get the original high
resolution image with an internet search like “hirise PSP_010854_1325”. In the Newton crater
we see active flow of liquid salty water. They have been named Recurring Slope Lineae (RSL).
This image is a reprojection of HiRISE images taken May 30, 2011. In another RSL image in
middle, left, the black areas first appear as dark and then during time they get a lighter white
color tone.

Under surface of Mars there is some dark material. In high latitudes, during the spring, the
melting carbon dioxide ice is moving the dark material to surface. The Gusev crater is near the
equator. In Earth sulfate-reducing bacteria produce black color metal sulfides. One interesting
form of life to consider as a model for life on Mars is Snow Algae , which on Earth lives in cold
environments.

Fig.13.1.Images from the orbit.

In first row below left there is Hubble Space Telescope images from year 2005 and 2015, and
images by India’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) from 2014 and 2015. In MOM image the dark
area below the center is Sinus Meridiani and the dark area on right from center is Syrtis Major.
There is interesting round cloud formation marked with letter "P" in MOM image. The Yellow-
Greenish color tones in Martian landscape are interesting in right side image, which shows also
one of the Moons of Mars, Phobos. The Elysium image by Viking Orbiter is example of dark
areas which can appear on Mars, without any dust storms affecting them [63]. The Elysium
dark area is at equator, latitude range 0 to 30 degrees, longitude range -180 to -135 degrees.

Fig.13.2.Images from the orbit.

Ice, Water and Moisture

Curiosity measured that Martian soil contains 2-6 percent water and the water is in liquid state
in temperature range -70..+10 degrees Celsius in Mars [132,133]. From time to time Curiosity
comes to areas where there are fresh looking flow markings on the ground, like in this Sol 389
and 661 image. Can these traces be produced by water or ice which is mixed in the soil and the
soil is freezing and melting periodically? In Sol 387 image there seems to be a hole in the
ground. Has something flown in or out here? Fluid or gas ?
Fig.13.3. Traces

In Sol-529 below the sand is attached to Curiosity wheels. Reason: moisture on sand? In Sol
1168 image Curiosity has driven over stones. Stones have pushed soil into mud resembling
formations. Some stones are broken in places where veins have weakened the stone, revealing
white vein interior.

Fig.13.4.Wet soil?
Below is a hole on the ground at John Klein site. The left image is in Sol-183 and the right
image is 88 Mars days later, Sol-271. The yellow arrow on Sol-271 image points to a vein and
nodule, which is not visible in Sol-183 image. In Sol-271 image, above the hole there is a series
of small holes done with Curiosity laser. The laser vaporizes the sand and ChemCamera
analyses the chemistry of the vapor.

The Sol 589 shows a distant bright flash in Left navigation camera image
(NRB_449790582EDR_F0310000NCAM00262M_). One proposal for it is cosmic ray hitting
the camera sensor, since the Right navigation camera image does not have this flash. But are the
left and right camera images taken exactly the same time? Another proposal has been an
underground methane eruption, and the ignition mechanism and source for oxygen is proposed
in reference [142].

Fig.13.5.Hole on John Klein site.

Wheels and Deck of Curiosity and bio-corrosion
Curiosity's aluminum wheels have suffered quite many damages on its journey. You can read
about it in this Universe Today article: Ken Kremer, December 26, 2013: Rough Red Planet
Rocks Rip Rover Curiosity Wheels . Do we see below some white material in interior of this
middle right side wheel? Is it just reflection of light? Ice? Fungi? From Sol 591 image, where
sunlight comes better to the wheel interior, it could be concluded that this is just reflection of
light. But from other images it is more difficult to make that conclusion. In Sol 521 there is also
red sand inside the wheel. In Sol-177 image the wheel is still very clean. In upper row images I
have enhanced dark areas brighter. In second row there is no enhancement. Could it be that
moisture freezes to interior of wheels and there comes a layer of ice? And in Sol-591 image
where sunlight hits the interior of wheel, the ice has melted away?

Fig.13.6.Wheels of Curiosity
One thing to consider for possible future manned missions is: If Mars has wide spread
chemolithoautotrophic microbes, then what kind of construction materials should be selected
for human settlements? Materials should be such that Martian microbes do not like them. The
aluminum, which is used in Curiosity’s wheels and is an ingredient in clay minerals, may not be
the best choice. The possibility of bio-corrosion for Mars rovers is handled in article: Rhawn
Joseph (assisted by Harry Rabb), December 2016: Contamination and Damage to the Mars
Rovers by Martian Fungi and Bacteria. The microbiological problems and bio-corrosion in
space is handled also in article by Institute of Biomedical Problems of the Russian Academy of
Sciences doctors Natalia D. Novikova, Elena A. Deshevaya and Svetlana V. Poddubko, April
2016: Long-term spaceflight and microbiological safety issues.

Below images from deck of Curiosity. On the image series below we may see microbial
colonies growing on the deck of Curiosity. And if so there are two alternatives. Either they are
Martian microbes or Microbes from Earth. The latter alternative is worse, since it would mean
that Curiosity is currently contaminating Mars with Earth microbes. If these are microbial
colonies then we see that the daily amount on UV radiation, cosmic radiation and temperature
variations on the surface of Mars does not harm them. And water would be provided by evening
and morning moisture from air. My own guess is that these would be Martian microbes. On top
row is the 150-micrometer sieve in robotic arm CHIMRA instrument used sieve particles from
samples.

Fig.13.7.Microbes on deck of Curiosity and Opportunity?

Similar observations to image above is also from deck of Opportunity and Spirit by Dr. Small in
[143]. Example of such is Sol 2813 image above from deck of Opportunity: Dark blue stains.

In image below we can investigate changes on the deck of Opportunity rover during 12 years.
On Sol 3 and 13 images the deck is clean with bright colors, and dark solar panels. 12 years
later, December 2016, we see that generally the deck has same blue tone as the in many places
in Mars, especially in blueberry areas. On right side instrument base(white ring) we may see
physical damage, possibly caused by thermal expansion (?).

Figure 13.8. Changes on the deck of Opportunity rover during 12 years.

There is one more interesting, most probably physical, phenomenon in Sol 720 MAHLI archive
black and white images. About this phenomenon I am not sure if it is real or not. So far I think
it is not caused by cosmic rays hitting the camera censor. The images are taken when morning
sun is low. So sun lights up any possible particles in the thin air and the ground provides a dark
background. The images have 1 to 6 pixel bright grains. When You browse the images one after
another, it looks like the grains are slowly floating in the air. Dust grains? Example series is
0720ML0030640000304930D01_DXXX, 0720ML0030640010304931D01_DXXX,
0720ML0030640020304932D01_DXXX. But how could the floating be possible if the air
pressure is so low?
Astropaleontology
One definition of Astropaleontology (or Astropaleobiology) is by Sherry L. Cady (Portland
State University, USA), Malcolm R. Walter (Macquarie University, Australia) and David J. Des
Marais (NASA Ames Research Center, USA) in their article: Astropaleobiology in the 21st
Century.

The Fossil at John Klein site

The finding of objects resembling animal fossils in images of Mars rovers is a difficult thing. It
is unbelievable, unexpected and even mind shaking discovery. Most scientists do not want to
discuss about them and also NASA has been mostly silent about them or completely denied
their existence. However off the record there has been discussions where these fossils are not
completely ruled out. One good almost 'off the record' interview of John Grotzinger and
Cristopher McKay by NBC News is James Oberg 2004: Avoiding the 'F Word' on Mars. This
is from year 2004 when Opportunity and Spirit had been in Mars only two months. In this
interview McKay takes up the possible faster pathway for multicellular life on Mars. And in this
NASA July 2014 publication we see a change in the attitude: D.J. Des Marais,NASA Ames
Research Center 2014: Concepts Of Life In The Contexts Of Mars.

I think it is a mistake to ignore the fossils in Curiosity images. They can be the strongest proof
for life on Mars. And they are extremely interesting to study. It is incredible to see that if life on
Earth and Mars are based on same DNA, that the evolution process has had same kind of tracks
on both planets, producing same kind of creatures. This has also philosophical consequences
concerning what kind of life there may be in exoplanets in our Milky Way galaxy, especially if
we assume that the DNA molecule is the basis of life everywhere in the Universe. For
researchers who have approached the extraterrestrial life from theoretical point of view, based
on current knowledge of biochemistry and probabilities, it is difficult to accept these
observations of fossils of complex multicellular life. For kids and common people the visual
identification of these objects and accepting them is easy and strait forward.

Instead of ignoring and hiding the fossils I now do the opposite. I try to describe and analyze
the fossil bones of John Klein images in Sol 173 and 186 in more detail. The fossil in Sol-109
image was one complete creature with all pieces in logical places (description in next chapter).
But the bones in John Klein site are scattered around and looks like they do not directly fit
together.
Fig.14.1.Fossils at John Klein site?

In figures below are the bones of John Klein site in images from A to L. The first 2 images 14.2
and 14.3 from A to G, I consider to be clearly bones. The last image 14.4 from H to L are more
unclear, with L being the most unclear. It may be that the bones here are not from one animal,
but instead bones from several species. It may be that if we could dig the ground here we would
find more bones fitting together. All these fossil bones have same kind of gray color,
distinguishing them from usual stones in Mars.

The bone A has a complex structure, and for me it is the most convincing object to interpret as a
fossil bone. It has such a complex structures that I cannot imagine how non-biological process
could create this kind of structures to a stone. There is images A-1 and A-2 of this object, with
different direction of Sun light.

Fig.14.2.Fossil details.
The bone B (B-1, B-2 and B-3) could be part of a head. Does it have 2 eyeholes? Note that in
figure B-1 and B-2, left side there is a spiral shaped piece, which looks like it has dropped off
from the skull piece. A horn? For what does a sea animal need a spiral shaped horn? In Earth
some land animals have spiral shaped horns. Also observe that the surface of this B object has
aligned lines from up to down. This is the only object having this kind of aligned surface lines
among several thousands of rover images which I have gone through. I get the impression that
this piece is not only the bone but maybe it has even the surface skin as fossilized. The B object
is also very symmetric.

The C bone has hollow channel inside as the bones of Earth creatures have (bone marrow). The
C bone is also very symmetric. It resembles a piece of backbone. Does bone C have two aligned
scratches on its surface? In Earth fossils aligned scratches on a bone can be interpreted so that
the animal has been killed by a predator. And in that kind of cases the bones of the eaten
creature may be scattered around (See Scientific American, summer 2014 Special Issue
Dinosaurs! article by Raymond R.Rogers, David D.Crause: A 70-milloin Year-old Murder
Mystery).

Fig.14.3.Fossil details.
The D-1 D-2 bone is also very symmetric. And in middle of it there is structure. Hollow bone
marrow filled with debris? The bone E is also symmetric, but looks like erosion has caused
some destruction to it. The bone F has very interesting symmetric structure with large thin
surface area on the right side.

The object G is such that if I would see this alone I would not recognize it as a bone. But
because it is very close to other clear bones, and it has same color, it is easy to state that it is a
bone. Note that in bone G, upper part there may be a white fungi-like object growing (at start
phase?) as we saw in beginning of this book, sol-173 white object.

The object H has symmetry axis, but is not so clear. The objects I, J and K are close to clear
bones and color is same. The object L has a symmetry axis, but I consider this as most unclear.

Fig.14.4.Fossil details.

In the first paragraph of this chapter I mentioned that it is even mind shaking to find fossils on
Mars. The reason is: We see that Mars, once beautiful Earth like planet full of life has lost
everything. Question arises: Will this happen to Earth? I handle this issue more in Appendix D:
Fermi paradox.
Fossil at Sol-109 and Sol-107
Description of the creature A in Sol-109 images. The A1 is the skull piece. It has a clear
symmetry plane. There are eyeholes, and at bottom of the holes there are small holes. Channels
from eye to brains as Earth creatures have? The pieces from A2 to A7 are neck bones (cervical
vertebrae). They are aligned and have a symmetry plane, which is especially clear in A2-A3
bone. The A5 bone seems to be turned into sideways. The formations A8 and A9 may belong to
this creature, and if so may relate to food collection. The A10 and A11 pieces are the torso of
the creature, also showing symmetry plane, which is clearer at A10 position. If A12 is part of
this creature it could be a limb. The object C1 is more unclear. It is close to creature A. The C1
could be same kind of creature than A, but seen from behind.

The D creature has mainly the skull piece left. This creature is of different species than creature
A. The D1 and D2 are eyeholes. The holes D3 and D4 are in the position where Earth creatures
have holes related to breathing. The D5 piece is interesting arch going upwards in the face. The
D7 and D8 look like arch shaped bones close to this creature.

The creature E may be of same species as creature D. The skull piece E is heavily eroded.
Interestingly there seem to be the white material, which we have seen before, at the bottom of
eyeholes. Or alternatively do we see background objects trough the holes?

Fig.14.5.Sol 107 and 109 fossils.

When images of Sol-109 creature A came to archive, then wild rumors started to spread in
internet about it. When NASA observed it, NASA removed the images of creature A from the
archive. But because the images were already circulating in web NASA decided to put the Sol
109 images back to archive. Do all Curiosity and Opportunity images go now to archive without
pre censorship?

Another fossil at Sol-186

For this case we would really need an expert on paleontology, researcher of fossils. The image
below is very sharp with a lot of details. A1 Head. Compare this to images of earth fossil heads.
A2 and A3 Neck. A4 Torso. Note that it easy to set a symmetry plane for this A4 part. There is
another small object B in this image. B1 Head. B2 torso. This fossil is just few meters from the
first Sol 186 fossil case presented above.

Fig.14.4. Sol 186 fossils.

Colors in Mars
We humans have color vision. It is important for us for example to identify different living
species of plant life and animal life. If we would have only black and white vision the
identification of living things in our environment would be more difficult. The images in
Opportunity and Spirit archives contain series of images taken in Red, Green and Blue color
filters. From those it is possible for anybody to produce natural color images for example with
freely available ImageJ software. The images in Curiosity archive contain only all dusty
appearance color images produced by NASA imaging team. The Curiosity images can be
converted to natural color with Gimp software automatic white balance adjustment.
You may have noted about Pinnacle Island that in one image the center is green and in another
it is red. And in the image with green center the ground has plain red color with less detail
visible than in image with red center. Why? Which one has the correct colors? Related to this is
a sad story from NASA Viking mission. You can read the full story from book MARS The
Living Planet [63], starting from page 140.

Fig.15.1.Colors.

When first Viking color image was received from Mars in 1976 there was beautiful blue sky
and wide range of colors in the landscape. The cameras had been well calibrated before landing
on Mars. Two hours after reception of first color image the Chief of NASA James C. Fletcher,
the NASA Administrator, called the Viking imaging team members and commanded them to
destroy the image with blue sky and replace it with a color scheme where the sky is red and
colors on landscape are dull reddish with less details visible. The Viking scientists were
shocked to see this happening. Because of physical phenomena of Rayleigh scattering the sky
of Mars is really blue as in Earth. Why did NASA management do this?

This falsified color schemes have been used systematically at least until 1996 and even today.
The Opportunity science teams talked about red center of Pinnacle Island, so the image with
green center was published with the old color scheme obviously by accident. And this happened
year 2014! On right side are images by Opportunity, Sol 17 year 2004 (archive identity
PIA05588). Images are about Blueberries, which are really blue in color. And in upper image
PIA05588-br2 we see that the landscape is blue because of the blueberries. Also the sky is blue
as it should be. However NASA says this is a 'false color' image. And for the image version
with dull reddish tone with red sky and red tone blueberries they say it to be "approximate true
color" image. In Curiosity Sol 538 NASA says upper image is white balanced as it would be
under light conditions of Earth sky and second row image with Martian light conditions. The
Curiosity camera calibration target has bright and clear colors on Earth. But in Sol 3 image at
Mars the colors are something else. All Curiosity images in archive are according to second
row colors. Why?

Opportunity investigated the Pinnacle Island for 4 weeks and then NASA gave a press release
that “it is just a rock”. As you can see in the images of Pinnacle Island in this book the NASA
press release is complete nonsense. I see that NASA just bought time to do some more work
before announcing the discovery of life in Mars. But hopefully they do it sooner than later.
NASA has done same kind of nonsense press releases for several other clearly lifelike objects,
like Curiosity Sol-304 object. They never consider life as an option in the press releases.

Fig.15.2.Colors, Curiosity 2016. Note also that in the MRO HiRISE image, targeted on
Curiosity, the colors match the upper row.

Also a sad thing is that starting from mid 1960s the reviewers of respected Science magazine
have made very difficult the publishing of articles where positive result for life on Mars is
presented. The Life on Mars issue is far from pure science; there is a lot of religious beliefs,
politics and dirty games involved. I quote the book MARS The Living Planet[63], page 97. In
meeting concerning Space Biology in 1961, which also Dr. Gilbert V. Levin participated, the
Editor of Science magazine Phil Abelson says:
“Let’s get out of here, this is talking about looking for life on the other planets! The Bible tells
us there cannot be any life on other planets - this is a waste of time!”.

Later Abelson rejected two scientific papers by Dr. Levin on the possibility of having detected
life on Mars. What has changed until year 2014? To get publication in Science magazine you
have to prefer all the abiotic hypothesis as first alternative and for clear and sense making
biological explanation say "..we include this only for the sake of completeness."? [17,
Grotzinger]

Science and religion do not have to contradict each other as you can read from the statement
about Big Bang and Evolution by Pope Francis in October 2014: Pope Francis: ‘Evolution … is
not inconsistent with the notion of creation’.

A good article about colors in Mars is: Barry DiGregorio, 2012 Contact in Context, Mars – No
longer the Red planet but rather, the Golden Brown planet.

During years 2014, 2015 and 2016 scientists, working with Life on Mars issue, have
experienced following criminal activity: breaking into their laptops and attacks against their
web sites. Also direct threats (to kill) and execution of the threats, against scientists are on the
toolbox (cases Rhawn Joseph 2014 and Richard Hoover 2011). At the same time the Head of
NASA Security makes threatening phone calls (as the one 16th of May 2016) to scientist
presenting evidence for life on Mars. Why does NASA Administration use the Head of NASA
Security to kill free discussion about this issue? Dr. Hoover is respected astrobiologists at
NASA. He made major discovery and published it in article: Journal of Cosmology, 2011:
Fossils of Cyanobacteria in CI1 Carbonaceous Meteorites.

Read also article by Patrick Rowan, based on Gilbert V.Levin's interview, 2nd of August 2016:
Patrick Rowan's Skywatch: Is NASA running away from life on Mars?. In this excellent article
it comes clear that NASA scientists are denied to publish evidence for life on Mars. There are
several cases where NASA has forced scientists to withdraw their planned science publications
of key evidence for life on Mars. Often used method inside NASA is a threat to cut the funding
of the science team, end for the team, if they make the publication. John Grotzinger had to
withdraw "Earth shaking" news in 2012. Carol Stoker had to withdraw chlorophyll result 2002.
Nora Noffke’s(2015) and Giorgio Bianciardi’s(2014) observations about microbialities in Mars
were ignored by NASA. Daniel Glavin had to withdraw a paper about finding molecules like
those in all microbiological membranes in Curiosity results in 2015. Access to Curiosity organic
analysis experiment results are restricted. Modern day inquisition.

This kind of actions against scientists can not originate from low level administrators inside
NASA. What is the role of the NASA administrator Charles Bolden in this? Does Mr. Bolden,
ex US Army general, define what scientists are allowed to say and publish? This has serious
consequences for planetary protection, to life on both Mars and on Earth. Scientists and science
editors, who still have morale and courage left, should now think if it is right to continue the
silence. Should we just repeat the public Lifeless Mars paradigm as NASA Administration
wants? Or should we use our own eyes and brains in front of all the new evidence? It is sad to
see the newspapers and media, even scientific magazines, blindly repeat the NASA and SpaceX
manned mission to Mars news. The planetary protection issue is completely missed. Where is
investigating journalism?

When Galileo Galilei pointed the telescope for the first time to the sky he made a large set of
discoveries, which changed our view of the world. Church inquisition demanded him to deny
the discoveries. Now we have had and have on Mars landers and rovers with excellent cameras
and instruments. They have done unexpected discoveries, life on Mars, even visible on the
surface, both current and past life. And again we have inquisition which wants to deny these
discoveries at any cost. The current situation with Life on Mars can be well compared to story
by Hans Christian Andersen, The Emperor's New Clothes. The truth can easily be seen, but
almost nobody dares to say it, because the Emperor NASA is quiet. Do you remember what
happened to the Emperor at the end of the story? Good thoughts around this area is written by
Patrick Rowan in his Skywatch blog, October 31st 2016: Searching for life, whether its
microbes or megastructures.

By writing the year 2016 article Mission to Mars: The Integration of Planetary Protection
Requirements and Medical Support I see that at the same time doctors John D. Rummel( ex
COSPAR PP, ex NASA PPO), Margaret S. Race(SETI, PP), Catharine A. Conley(NASA PPO)
and David Liskowsky (NASA Medical Officer) take an important stand for freedom of science
and for the basic human right, the freedom of speech. Their article says the things as they are. It
gives the correct view, which is completely different than the NASA's public Hollywood style
conquering of Lifeless Mars. Thank You John, Margaret, Catharine and David. Article belongs
to a series "If Life is Discovered on Mars". Other articles in the series are:

Gilbert V. Levin: Extant Life on Mars: Resolving the Issues

Robert J.C. McLean: Planetary Protection and Missions Between Earth and Mars
Mihai G. Netea, Frank L. van de Veerdonk, Marc Strous, Jos W.M. van der Meer.: Infection
Risk of a Human Mission to Mars
S. Leuko, L. J. Rothschild, B. P. Bur: Halophilic Archaea and the Search for Extinct and Extant
Life on Mars
Rhawn Joseph: A Low to High Probability of Life on Mars: Biologists' Top Five Candidates
For Martian Life
Rhawn Joseph, (assisted by Harry Rabb): Contamination and Damage to the Mars Rovers by
Martian Fungi and Bacteria.
In May 2017 Dr. Kelly Smith invited Harry Rabb, the author of this Life on Mars web site, to
participate the SoCIA 2018 conference: Social and Conceptual Issues in Astrobiology in USA
University of Nevada, Reno, in April 2018. I see this invitation as an acknowledgement of the
work done by several involved persons last years and even last decades. Dr. Smith is Professor
of Philosophy & Biological Sciences in Clemson University. Read also interesting article by
Smith, May 2016: Do no harm to life on Mars? Ethical limits of Prime Directive. In the first
SoCIA 2016 meeting there was participants from NASA, SETI institute and several
universities. And see SoCIA 2018 statement by NASA: Social and Conceptual Issues in
Astrobiology (SOCIA 2018).

In Finland the astrobiology activities are lead by Kirsi Lehto and Harry Lehto in University of
Turku. Kirsi Lehto has written a book Astrobiologia, published by astronomical
association Ursa 2019. In pages 182-189 she handles the possibilities of life on Mars. The
issues and thougths are similar to observations presented in this study. NASA has requested
Olli-Pekka Vainio from Helsinki University to Princenton University to a group which studies
the impact of astrobiology to our world view.

In Sweden professors Natuschka Lee and Asta Pellinen-Wannberg from Umeå University,
Sweden, organized Astrobiology conference Life on Earth and in the Universe Current State &
Future Visions in October 2017. The presentations had several interesting issues.

On March 2019 an interesting article was published with 3 references to this study and Lyall
Winston Small's study: R. Gabriel Joseph, Regina S. Dass, V. Rizzo, N. Cantasano, G.
Bianciardi, Journal of Astrobiology and Space Science Reviews, 1,40--81, 2019: Evidence of
Life on Mars?. In the article series this study is referred also in: Richard A. Armstrong Could
Lichens Survive on Mars?. Also the director of NASA Astrobiology institute Penelope Boston is
writing in this series: Location, Location, Location! Lava Caves on Mars for Human Habitat,
and the Search for Life.Read also T.A.Krupa, LPSC 2017: Flowing water with a photosynthetic
life form in Gusev crater on Mars .

In 2015 the otherwise very entertaining and good movie The Martian, gave an incorrect view of
Manned mission to lifeless Mars. It is good that there is coming a more realistic movie LIFE by
Sony Pictures Entertainment in 2017 handling the Planetary Protection concern if sample from
Mars, with Martian life is brought to Earth. This way large public can easily understand the
issues around planetary protection. The year 2017 book The Origin by Dan Brown also nicely
brings up some astrobiology issues.

On 2019 my abstract Visual identification of Extant Martian life was approved on the agenda of
NASA organized conference in Carlsbad, New Mexico Mars Extant Life: What’s Next?
Update 14th of January 2021: I have got information, that when NASA plans Mars missions,
the top priority is the costs, not planetary protection. So the contamination risk of the Earth is
mostly bypassed or ignored inside NASA administration. I think that the price tag should not
matter when we think of saving Earths biosphere from contamination by Martian microbes,
which could, in worst case, convert Earths biosphere completely to something we could not
recognize anymore. We can just think what has been the global price tag of COVID19
pandemic, and multiply that with 100 if Martian microbes are spread on Earth.

NASA plan is to bring samples from Mars directly to Earth. I estimate from previous success
rate of sample return missions, that the risk of failure, for contamination of Earth biosphere is as
high as 20 percent, which is unacceptable. Our technology for making safe entry from space to
surface of Earth is not mature enough yet. Example: The NASA Genesis sample return mission
crashed on Utah 2004 as the parachute did not open, spreading the samples on the desert.
NASA has Planetary Protection Officers, but their common sense words of contamination risks
are overruled by money and politics.

The President of the United States, Joe Biden should take this issue on his desk. On December
2020 the White House National Space Council published a document National Strategy for
Planetary Protection. Joe Biden should take care that it is strictly followed.

New plan for NASA and SpaceX in short: (A) Manned missions to Mars must be postponed to
distant future, until it is made sure that microbes of Mars do not cause any harm to Earth
lifeforms. (B) Execute the tests in Mars with robotic laboratories. Do not bring samples to
Earth. A proposal by Barry DiGregorio has been to establish a quarantine lab on Moon, where
the samples could be safely tested The Moon: A 100% isolation barrier for Earth during
exobiological examination of solar system sample return missions. Inside NASA there has been
presented even completely insane views: "The contamination of Earth with Mars microbes will
happen anyway sometime in future, so let’s make it now and see what happens".
Epilogue – Mars - The Living Planet
Until September 28th 2015 NASA promoted the dry and Lifeless Mars paradigm for 40 years.
In September 28th 2015 NASA presented a new paradigm: Liquid water and possibly microbial
life. But nothing more. How long will it take that macroscopic life, both past and present,
visible in hundreds of images is admitted? Is the time for the final paradigm change “Mars –
The Living Planet” around 2030 after first man has stepped on Mars and the planetary
protection damage has been done by ‘accident’? "Sorry, we did not know....".

I agree on that humanity must continue developing space travel and eventually maybe even
make colonies to Mars. We must become interplanetary and even interstellar species. But
intermediate cautious steps must be taken when the target planet is already habited. We should
now continue with robotic missions to Mars instead of manned missions, until we are sure that
there is no harm in the exchange of life forms between Mars and Earth. As an intermediate step,
a manned Mars biology research laboratory to the orbit of Mars? Planetary Protection First!
Robert Walker in UK describes very well how space exploration plans should be modified
concerning Mars and planetary protection, October 2016: President Obama, Why Humans On
Mars Right Now Are Bad For Science . In short: Manned missions to orbit of Mars and from
the orbit guiding of sterilized robotic Avatars on surface to study biology.

Below is interesting details of Esperance site by Opportunity, Sol 3230. Opportunity spent 60
days closely investigating this extremely interesting object. It is natural to ask following
question: Why there are no sharp images in image archive of these interesting details, which are
just under reach of microscopic imager? Same question can be asked for several other objects,
clearly past and present life on Mars, presented in this book. Was the assumption of rover
science teams, that there can only be microbial life on Mars? And if they saw anything else on
the images, they just thought it is not possible and kept on driving, without investigating them?
Or they have investigated them but the images and data is kept secret? Or no investigation done
because finding life on Mars is not on current mission objectives? These attitude issues can be
read more in articles: NASA 2014-8-21, Bone up on Mars Rock Shapes and Universe Today,
Elizabeth Howell 2014-9-4, NASA Curiosity Rover Missing ‘Scientific Focus And Detail’ In
Mars Mission: Review .
Fig.16.1.Details of Esperance

About my background: I have had astronomy as a hobby for 40 years. Education: Master of
Science degree from Helsinki University of Technology, part of Aalto University today. The
objects presented in this book were found mainly by going through systematically the Curiosity
and Opportunity image archives, during four years. NASA has presented only some of the
objects. Motivation for deep dive into archives came from this: In 2013 Steven Benner’s theory
about life born in Mars was widely promoted in news. At the same time I found in internet
images and writings about Sol-109 object. My first reaction was "This is not possible, must be a
practical joke or misinterpretation. NASA says Mars is lifeless".

I wanted to verify the authenticity of the images, so I searched the original images from the
Curiosity archive. Then I started to check other images close to Sol-109, and then I started
systematic visual check for all the images. During the process I have had the luck to establish
contact and have mail discussion with some of the leading scientists related to Mars research,
astrobiology and planetary protection. The first one who ever did systematic visual check for
Mars images, was Dr. Gilbert V. Levin. He checked all the Viking lander images and found in
some images greenish patches with seasonal changes [63].

I am in a way in good position that I have astronomy just as a hobby. I can say freely and
honestly what can be seen in the Mars rover images. The publications by Curiosity and
Opportunity science teams linked in this book suggest in titles and content that there is life on
Mars. But yet the direct announcement by NASA "Yes, we have found life on Mars" is missing.
And because of that official view of NASA still is "There is no proof for life on Mars"? Having
the wrong official view leads to dangerous consequences when samples with alien microbes are
returned from Mars to Earth in 2020 decade. We must be cautious when opening Pandora’s box
from Mars.
Fig.16.2. The writer of this book working as summer student in Geneva CERN, year 1989. In
this picture there is Delphi detector of LEP-collider, 100 meters underground. The electrons
and positrons (matter and antimatter) were accelerated in 27 kilometers long tunnel close to
speed of light. Collisions were done in 4 places, one of them this Delphi detector. Conditions in
the collision are same as in first second after birth of the Universe in Big Bang. The LEP-
collider produced Z and W bosons so that their mass could be determined. Image on right: First
Z-zero detected by Delphi. Discovery was done by Finnish physicist P. Eerola. Printout was
signed by CERN director, director Carlo Rubbia.

Acknowledgements: I am grateful to doctors Lyall Winston Small , Ian West , Barry

E.DiGregorio, Gilbert V. Levin and Rhawn Joseph. And I am grateful to a friend in
Massachusetts USA, for comprehensive discussions and help. And to seven other well-known
scientists in USA, UK, Russia, Australia and Finland for daring to communicate with me. I am
grateful to doctor Kelly Smith, who arranged this study to SoCIA 2018 astrobiology conference.
And thanks for Dr. Margaret Race from SETI institute for unforgettable face to face discussion
in University of Nevada after my presentation in SoCIA2018 astrobiology conference. Thanks
for doctors Giorgio Bianciardi and Vincenzo Rizzo for discussions on stromatolite and
microbialities area. I am grateful to my wife for discussions on the biological fundamentals. She
has done research on the interactions of environmental chemicals with DNA in her PhD. And
special thanks go to my uncle Sixten and his wife, who taught me how to identify Cantharellus
Tubaeformis fungi in autumn forest. And thanks to my sister Harriet in assisting this work.

This article may contain mistakes, and I am alone responsible for those. I have written this as a
private person, and I do not represent any University or commercial company. You, dear reader,
are free to distribute the link to this article and to download this PDF file.

Kirkkonummi - Finland 2013-2022, Harry Rabb, M.Sc.

Contacts concerning this article: harryrabb.space (at) gmail.com

Mars by Hubble Space telescope 2005.

References
(1) Wikipedia: RNA

(2) Wikipedia: DNA

(3) Universe Today, Ken Kremer, 30.8.2013: Are We Martians? Chemist’s New Claim Sparks Debate

(4) European Planetary Science, Dina Pasini, 13.8.2013: Could life have survived a fall to Earth?

(5) Universe Today, Fraser Cain, 29.7.2013: Is Life On Mars Related To Life On Earth?

(6) Wikipedia: Evolution

(7) Curiosity image archive,

(8) Opportunity image archive

(9) H.Kurokawa 2014: Thickness of Martian ground ice: Implication from multi-water-reservoir model.

(10) NASA 2012: Puzzling Little Martian Spheres That Don't Taste Like 'Blueberries'
(11) A.G. Fairén 2014: Hollowed spherules identified with the MER Opportunity near and at Cape York,
western rim of Endeavour crater, Mars

(12) S.Djordjevic 2014: Simulating Martian conditions: Methanogen survivability during freeze-thaw cycles

(13) Wikipedia: Microbial metabolism

(14) Wikipedia: Sulfate reducing bacteria

(15) Science magazine: Special Collection - Curiosity

(16) NASA: New Curiosity Research Papers

(17) John Grotzinger, 2013: A Habitable Fluvio-Lacustrine Environment at Yellowknife Bay, Gale Crater,
Mars'

(18) D.T. Vaniman, 2013: Mineralogy of a Mudstone at Yellowknife Bay, Gale Crater, Mars .

(19) Guy Webster, JPL: NASA Curiosity: First Mars Age Measurement and Human Exploration Help

(20) NASA: NASA Rover Finds Conditions Once Suited for Ancient Life on Mars.

(21) Wikipedia: Fungus

(22) Universe Today, Nancy Atkinson, January 17, 2014: The Rock that Appeared Out of Nowhere on Mars

(23) 45th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference 17-21.3.2014, Texas

(24) N.L.Lanza 2014, Manganese trends with depth on rock surfaces in Gale crater, Mars.

(25) The University of Buckingham: Barry E.DiGregorio

(26) Phys.org, Aug 06, 2012 by Lisa Zyga: Rock varnish may hold clues to life on Mars.

(27) Barry E. DiGregorio 2001: Rock Varnish As A Habitat For Extant Life On Mars.

(28) Earthmagazine.org,Timothy Oleson March 19, 2014, Bare Earth Elements: Mars rocks wear manganese
coats

(29) R.L.Mickol and T.A.Kral 2014: Approaching Martian conditions: Methanogen survival at low pressure

(30) J.Jänchen 2014: Impact of UVC exposure on the water retention of the Lichen Buellia Frigida

(31) A.J.Williams 2014: Biogenic iron mineralization at Iron mountain, CA, with implications for detection
with the Mars Curiosity rover.

(32) A.Buch 2014: Impact of the sample preparation on the organic compounds detected on mars at JK and CB.

(33) S.M.Som 2014: Reactive transport modeling of Phosphate mineral dissolution in high-P Martian rock

(34) D.W.Beaty 2014: Introduction to an updated analysis of planetary protection “Special regions” on Mars.

(35) D. Glavin 2014: Origin of Chlorobenzene detected by the Curiosity rover in Yellowknife bay: Evidence for
Martian organics in the Sheepbed mudstone?
(36) J. Ronholm 2014: Mineralogical characterization of calcium carbonate polymorphs biologically
precipitated during heterotrophic bacterial growth

(37) M. Nachon 2014: Calcium sulfate characterized by chemcam/Curiosity at Gale crater, Mars

(38) R.V.Morris 2014: Chemical composition of crystalline, smectite, and amorphous components for Rocknest
soil and John Klein and Cumberland mudstone drill fines using APXS, CHEMIN, and SAM datasets from Gale
crater, Mars

(39) Onyilagha,J.C 2014: Further Investigation into the Biosynthetic Pathways of the 20 Standard Amino Acids
of the Genetic Code

(40) S.M.Som 2014: An integrative approach to assessing habitability of H2 metabolisms in hydrothermal

springs

(41) J. Audouard 2014: Water-equivalent hydrogen content of the Martian surface

(42) J.E. Brandenburg 2014, Meteorite NWA 7533, the Confirmation of the CI-Mars Hypothesis, and The Mars
Age Paradox

(43) Planetary Society, Emily Lakdawalla 5-12-2013 Mars' chemical history: Phyllosian, Theiikian, Siderikian,
oh my

(44) Planetary Society, Emily Lakdawalla 25-10-2013 Noachian, Hesperian, and Amazonian, oh my! - Mars'
Geologic Time Scale

(45) D.Burr 2002, Recent extreme floods on Mars.

(46) NASA May 17, 2013: Mars Rover Opportunity Examines Clay Clues in Rock

(47) B. C. Clark 2014: Espérance: Extreme aqueous alteration in fracture fills and coatings at Matijevic Hill,
Mars.

(48) Universe Today, Nancy Atkinson, November 20, 2012: Has Curiosity Made an ‘Earth-Shaking’
Discovery?

(49) npr.org, Joe Palca, November 20, 2012: Big News From Mars? Rover Scientists Mum For Now

(50) Science magazine, Richard A. Kerr, December 9, 2013, New Results Send Mars Rover on a Quest for
Ancient Life

(51) John Grotzinger, December 30 2013: Habitability, Taphonomy, and Curiosity’s Hunt for Organic Carbon

(52) Wikipedia: Charles Darwin

(53) John Grotzinger , 24th of January 2014: Habitability, Taphonomy, and the Search for Organic Carbon on
Mars

(54) NASA May 2, 2014: Space Station Research Shows That Hardy Little Space Travelers Could Colonize
Mars

(55) NASA Viking mission web-site

(56) Gilbert V. Levin - web site

(57) Universe Today, Elizabeth Howell, December 11, 2013: Is There Martian Salty Water At The Red Planet’s
Equator? These Lines May Be The Smoking Gun

(58) Wikipedia: Carl Sagan.

(59) International Committee Against Mars Sample Return

(60) Christopher P. McKay, NASA Ames Research Center, 2007 : Planetary Ecosynthesis on Mars: Restoration
Ecology and Environmental Ethics

(61) Michael Davidson, 2004: Mars Fossils, Pseudofossils, and Problematica

(62) Joseph Rhawn 2014: Life on Mars? Evidence for Moisture, Algae, Fungi, and Lichens on the Red Planet?

(63) Barry DiGregorio, Gil Levin and Patricia Ann Straat 1997: MARS The Living Planet

(64) Gilbert V. Levin: Chapter Nine - Life After Viking: The Evidence Mounts

(65) Barry E. DiGregorio: The Viking Labeled Release experiment controversey: Why does it exist and when
will it end?

(66) Wikipedia: Panspermia.

(67) Wikipedia: Sir Fred Hoyle.

(68) Wikipedia: Chandra Wickramasinghe.

(69) Buckingham Centre for Astrobiology.

(70) Wikipedia: Drake equation

(71) Bruno Martini,Nov 30, 2012 , Astrobiology magazine: At last, How many alien civilizations are there ?

(72) NASA: MAVEN spacecraft web-site

(73) Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)

(74) High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment

(75) Universe Today, Ken Kremer, December 26, 2013: Rough Red Planet Rocks Rip Rover Curiosity Wheels

(76) The Eighth International Conference on Mars, July 2014 Pasadena California

(77) Jie Wei, Alian Wang 2014: Detecting Biosignatures on Mars: Lessons Learned from Mars Analog Site
Studies

(78) R. Bhartia 2014: Combining Chemistry and Morphology to Assess Biosignature

(79) R. L. Mickol 2014: Methanogens as Models for Life on Mars

(80) Scott M. Perl 2014: Experimental Constraints on Martian Aqueous Environments and Biosignature
Preservation: Simulating Fluid Flow Profiles and Microbial Development in the Shallow Subsurface
(81) Valerie Fox, 8th Mars Report: Martian habitability.

(82) D.J. Des Marais 2014: Concepts Of Life In The Contexts Of Mars. .

(83) J.P.Grotzinger, and the MSL Science Team 2014: Habitability, Organic Taphonomy, And The Sedimentary
Record Of Mars. .

(84) P. G. Conrad 2014: The Present Habitability Potential of Gale Crater: What We Have Learned So Far From
Mars Science Laboratory. .

(85) N.L.Lanza 2014: High Manganese Observations With Chemcam in Gale Crater, Mars.

(86)Astrobiology Magazine 19 August 2014: Life on Mars? Implications of a newly discovered mineral-rich
structure.

(87)Elias Chatzitheodoridis 2014: A Conspicuous Clay Ovoid in Nakhla: Evidence for Subsurface
Hydrothermal Alteration on Mars with Implications for Astrobiology.

(88) NASA 2014-8-21, Bone up on Mars Rock Shapes

(89) Universe Today, Elizabeth Howell 2014-9-4, NASA Curiosity Rover Missing ‘Scientific Focus And
Detail’ In Mars Mission: Review .

(90) Barry E. DiGregorio 2002, Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology, Dissolution cavities in Upper Ordovician
sandstones from Lake Ontario: Analogs to vesiculated rocks on Mars?

(91) Vincenzo Rizzo and Nicola Cantasano 2009, International Journal of Astrobiology 8 (4), Possible
organosedimentary structures on Mars

(92) V.Rizzo and N.Cantasano 2011, Mem. S.A.It.Vol.82, 2011, Textures on Mars: evidences of a biogenic
environment.

(93) wikipedia: Permian–Triassic extinction event

(94) Scientific American, Summer 2014 Special Issue Dinosaurs!, article Raymond R.Rogers, David D.Crause:
A 70-milloin Year-old Murder Mystery.

(95) Rhawn Joseph 2014: Apothecia on Mars? Life Discovered on the Red Planet

(96) Wikipedia: Stromatolite

(97) J. William Schopf 2007: Evidence of Archean life: Stromatolites and microfossils

(98) UNITED NATIONS TREATIES AND PRINCIPLES ON OUTER SPACE (2002 Update)

(99) COSPAR Planetary Protection Policy (2011 Update)

(100) NBC News, James Oberg 2004: Avoiding the 'F Word' on Mars.

(101) Universe Today, Matt Williamson, Philippe Gillet 2014: Meteorite May Contain Proof of Life on Mars,
Researchers Say

(102) Wikipedia: AHL84001

(103) Wikipedia: Planetary protection

(104) Astrobiology Magazine 2014, Elizabeth Howell: How Did Life Become Complex, And Could It Happen
Beyond Earth?

(105) W.M.Napier and N.C.Wickramasinghe 2010: Mechanisms for Panspermia

(106) Rhawn Joseph and Rudolf Schild 2010: Origins, Evolution, and Distribution of Life in the Cosmos:
Panspermia, Genetics, Microbes, and Viral Visitors From the Stars

(107) Christopher R. Webster, 16.12.2014: Mars Methane Detection and Variability at Gale Crater

(108) Universe Today, Tim Reyes on December 17, 2014: NASA’s Curiosity Rover detects Methane, Organics
on Mars

(109)J.Geophys. Res.,doi:10.1029/2010JE003599, in press (2010): Navarro-Gonzalez, R., E. Vargas, J. de la

Rosa, A. C. Raga, and C. P. McKay, Reanalysis of the Viking results suggests perchlorate and organics at mid-
latitudes on Mars

(110) ASTROBIOLOGY Volume 15, Number 2, 2015, Nora Noffke, Ancient Sedimentary Structures in the <
3.7 Ga Gillespie Lake Member, Mars, That Resemble Macroscopic Morphology, Spatial Associations, and
Temporal Succession in Terrestrial Microbialites.

(111) Universe Today, Ken Kremer,January 21, 2015: President Obama Salutes NASA, Astronaut Kelly, and 1
Year ISS Mission at State of the Union Address

(112) Universe Today, Paul Patton, January 6, 2015, Defining Life II: Metabolism and Evolution as clues to
Extraterrestrial Life

(113) Ian West: Fossil Forest, Lulworth Cove; Part 1: The Ledge and Strata, Geology of the Wessex Coast of
Southern England.

(114) Ian West: The Purbeck Fossil Forest - 2: The Trees

(115) Universe today: Bob King,March 2015, Mars Loses an Ocean But Gains the Potential for Life

(116) in Finnish language: Tähdet ja Avaruus, 29.08.2013 S.Nummila, H.Lehto : Steven Benner - saatamme
olla marsilaista alkuperää

(117) in Finnish language: Tähdet ja Avaruus, 17.09.2013 S.Nummila : Tutkijat simuloivat elämän saapumista
Maahan avaruudesta

(118) in Finnish language: Tiede-lehti, L.Purkamo M.Nuppunen-Puputti 2012: Ne syövät kiveä

(119) in Finnish language: Tähdet ja Avaruus, 2015 S.Nummila : Marsista löytyi elämälle sopivaa typpeä ja
mahdollisesti rasvahappoja

(120) Astrobiology Magazine 2015: Curiosity Rover Finds Biologically Useful Nitrogen on Mars
(121) Astrobiology Magazine 2015: How Would The World Change If We Found Extraterrestrial Life?

(122) Gilbert V. Levin, Astrobiology 2015: The Curiousness of Curiosity.

(123) Morten Bo Madsen, April 2015: Mars might have liquid water

(124) Charles Darwin, 1859: On the Origin of Species

(125) T.de Haas 2015, Earth-like aqueous debris-flow activity on Mars at high orbital obliquity in the last
million years.

(126) Gilbert Levin, 8 July 2013, SPIE Newsroom: Evidence for microbial life on Mars?

(127) Matt Williams, Universe Today July 2015, Mars

(128) July 23 2015 University of Buckingham Astrobiologists Endorsed by UK Space Agency to Look for Life
on Mars

(129) YouTube 3.8.2014 Dr. Gilbert Levin: But Wait! We've already Found Life on Mars! (24 minutes)

(130) YouTube 21.6.2010 Life on Mars Interview with Barry DiGregorio and Dr. Gilbert Levin (9 minutes)

(131) YouTube 3.9.2010 Gilbert V. Levin commentary on the book MARS: THE LIVING PLANET (8
minutes)

(132) NASA, 28.9.2015, NASA Confirms Evidence That Liquid Water Flows on Today’s Mars

(133) Universe Today, by Ken Kremer on September 28, 2015: NASA Discovers Salty Liquid Water Flows
Intermittently on Mars Today, Bolstering Chance for Life

(134) 7.10.2015 Patrick Rowan's Skywatch: Mars has liquid water, could it have life?

(135) Icarus 2015, Colin M. Dundas, Alfred S. McEwen, Slope activity in Gale crater, Mars.

(136) Lyall Winston Small, September 2015: On Debris Flows and Mineral Veins - Where surface life resides
on Mars

(137) Lyall Winston Small, 2012: In search of life on Mars

(138) Mars Rover Blog See for example discussion threads Yellowknife Bay and Mount Sharp - Extended
Mission 1.

(139) Richard Thieltges, Evolutionary research - Stromatolite Identification Site

(140) Elizabeth A. Bella, 2015: Potentially biogenic carbon preserved in a 4.1 billion-year-old zircon

(141) UCLA Newsroom October 19 2015: Life on Earth likely started at least 4.1 billion years ago — much
earlier than scientists had thought
(142) YouTube 28.8.2015 Dr. Gil Levin - 18th Annual International Mars Society Convention (30 minutes)

(143) Lyall Winston Small: Mars rover images in SmugMug

(144) Barry DiGregorio, Gilbert V.Levin, Patricia Ann Straat, Chandra Wickramasinghe, Joseph Miller, 2011:
The Microbes of Mars

(145) Lyall Winston Small, 2015: The Living Rocks of Mars.

(146) Simon George and Carol Oliver: NASA Macquarie University Pilbara Education Project

(148) John D. Rummel, Margaret S. Race, Catharine A. Conley, David R. Liskowsky, 2016:
Mission to Mars: The Integration of Planetary Protection Requirements and Medical Support

(149) The 47th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, Texas March 21–25, 2016: (Is there) Life On Mars?
Martian exobiology tools, analogs, and environments

(150) K. F. Bywaters and R. C. Quinn: Perchlorate reducing bacteria: Evaluating the potential for growth
utilizing nutrient sources identified on Mars.

(151) B. J. Rodriguez-Colon and E. G. Rivera-Valentín: Investigating the biological potential of Gale crater’s
subsurface

(152) Z.R. Harrold, E.M. Hausrath, C.L. Bartlett, A.H. Garcia, O. Tschauner: Bioavailability of mineral-bound
iron to a Snow Algae community and implications for life in extreme environments

(153) H. Yano, A. Yamagishi, H. Hashimoto: The first year operation and initial sample analysis and curation
preparation of Tanpopo, the Japanese astrobiology experiment onboard the ISS-JEM-EF

(154) Gilbert V. Levin 2016, Extant Life on Mars: Resolving the Issues

(155) Robert J.C. McLean, Planetary Protection and Missions Between Earth and Mars

(156) Mihai G. Netea, Frank L. van de Veerdonk, Marc Strous, Jos W.M. van der Meer, Infection Risk of a
Human Mission to Mars

(157) S. Leuko, L. J. Rothschild, B. P. Burns, Halophilic Archaea and the Search for Extinct and Extant Life on
Mars

(158) Joop M. Houtkooper, Dirk Schulze-Makuch, The Possible Role of Perchlorates for Martian Life

(159) Wright S. P 2015: Microbial Diversity Analyses of Terrestrial Shocked Basalt and Shocked Basaltic Soil:
Implications for Panspermia and Future Exobiology Measurements

(160) Sinha N., Kral T. A 2015: Growth of Methanogens on Different Mars Regolith Analogues and Stable
Carbon Isotope Fractionation During Methanogenesis

(161) New Scientist, 22-4-2016, Andy Coghlan, Agnès Cousin, First direct evidence of ancient Mars’s oxygen-
rich atmosphere.
(162) Sherry L. Cady, Malcolm R. Walter, David J. Des Marais: Astropaleobiology in the 21st Century.

(163) R. Gabriel Joseph, 2016-5-15 : A Low to High Probability of Life on Mars: The Experts' Top Five
Candidates.

(164) Chandra Wickramasinghe, May 7, 2016 : Evidence of life outside the Earth.

(165) Robert Walker, March 2016: Can We Risk Microbes From Human Crashes - On Mars? If Not, What
Happens To Dreams To Colonize The Planet?

(166) Patrick Rowan's Skywatch, July 2015: 40 years after Viking landing questions remain about life on
Mars

(167) Patrick Rowan's Skywatch, August 2016: Is NASA running away from life on Mars?

(168) Lyall Winston Small's web site: The Cosmos, Mars and Life

(169) Kelly Smith, May 2016: Do no harm to life on Mars? Ethical limits of Prime Directive

(170) Frances Westall et all, CNRS-OSUC-Centre de Biophysique Moleculaire, Orleans, France, Astrobiology
Vol.15: Biosignatures on Mars: What, Where, and How? Implications for the Search for Martian Life

(171) Lindsay Hays et al.: NASA Astrobiology Strategy 2015

(172) Giorgio Bianciardi, Vincenzo Rizzo, Nicola Cantasano, 2014: Opportunity Rover’s image analysis:
Microbialites on Mars?

(173) Rhawn Joseph, September 7, 2016: CV 16 5142, NASA Lawsuit: Life on Mars

(174) Lyall Winston Small 2015, Some More Microbialite Images From Mars

(175) Lyall Winston Small 2015, A Visual Case for Contemporary Formation of some Rocks on Mars. For
interest see also In search of the sacred silk cotton tree

(176) Wikipedia: Chlorophyll

(177) David Whitehouse, BBC News 2002: Life on Mars hopes raised

(178) Paul Rincon , BBC News 2015:Possible fatty acid detected on Mars

(179) Milton Wainwright, N Chandra Wickramasinghe, Christopher E Rose, Alexander J Baker 2014, Recovery
of Cometary Microorganisms from the Stratosphere

(180) Mark Strauss, National Geographic, October 17, 2016: NASA’s Bold Plan to Hunt for Fossils on Mars

(181) ESA, July 2016: Planetary Protection for EXOMARS: An interview with Gerhard Kminek

(182) Gilbert V. Levin and Patricia Ann Straat,Astrobiology October 1st 2016, The Case for Extant Life on
Mars and Its Possible Detection by the Viking Labeled Release Experiment
(183) Mary Ann Liebert, Oct 18 2016: Microbial life on Mars: The possibility must be considered conclude
researchers in Astrobiology .

(184) Patrick Rowan's Skywatch, October 31st 2016: Searching for life, whether its microbes or megastructures.

(185) EURO-CARES project. European Curation of Astromaterials Returned from Exploration of Space

(186) Neel V. Patel, November 17, 2016 Inverse: Alien Lifeforms Will Have an Apartment in Europe.

(187) Charles Q. Choi , Scientific American, November 30, 2016: NASA Outlines Planetary Protection
Priorities

(188) M.Race, J.Johnson, J.Spry, B.Siegel and C.Conley 2015: Planetary Protection Knowledge Gaps for
Human Extraterrestrial Missions.

(189) Richard Hoover, Journal of Cosmology, 2011: Fossils of Cyanobacteria in CI1 Carbonaceous Meteorites.

(190) Irene Klotz, Seeker, MSN News, December 2016: Curiosity Finds Mars May Be Covered in Organic
Materials .

(191) Rhawn Joseph, Harry Rabb, December 2016: Contamination and Damage to the Mars Rovers by Martian
Fungi and Bacteria

(192) Robert Walker, October 2016: President Obama, Why Humans On Mars Right Now Are Bad For Science

(193) Institute of Biomedical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Natalia D. Novikova, Elena A.
Deshevaya and Svetlana V. Poddubko, April 2016: Long-term spaceflight and microbiological safety issues

(194) Patrick Rowan, January 2017 Skywatch: Can narcissism explain the Fermi paradox?

(195) Nick Bostrom , 2008: WHERE ARE THEY?

(196) Chelsea Gohd, February 12 2017: NASA Discovers an Organism That Can Survive 16 Months in Outer
Space

(197) David H. Krinsley, Barry DiGregorio, Ronald I. Dorn, Josh Razink & Robert Fisher, March 2017: Mn-Fe-
Enhancing Budding Bacteria in Century-Old Rock Varnish, Erie Barge Canal, New York

(198) Wikipedia: Tardigrade

(199) Peter Dockrill, April 2017, The World's Oldest Fungus Might Have Just Been Found Buried Under South
Africa

(200) SoCIA 2016, Social and Conceptual Issues in Astrobiology

(201) Science Alert 2017, Peter Dockrill, Mars Probe Data Shows The Red Planet Is Hiding Water
Where There Shouldn't Be Any

(202) Icarus 2017-07-028, Jack T.Wilson, Equatorial locations of water on Mars: Improved
resolution maps based on Mars Odyssey Neutron Spectrometer data
(203) Science Alert Oct 2017, Fiona MacDonald, One of The Biggest Evolution Experiments Ever Has
Followed 68,000 Generations of Bacteria

(204) Vladimir S. Cheptsov et al, 2017: 100 kGy gamma-affected microbial communities within the ancient
Arctic permafrost under simulated Martian conditions

(205) Universe Today, Matt Williams , November 2017 : Life on Mars can Survive for Millions of Years Even
Right Near the Surface

(206) Science alert, Peter Dockrill , November 2017 : Living Bacteria "From Outer Space" Have Been Found
on The Outside of The ISS

(207) Universe Today, Matt Williams , November 2017 : Galactic Panspermia: Interstellar Dust Could
Transport Life from Star to Star

(208) Universe Today, Matt Williams, J. William Schopf , December 2017 : Just a Billion Years After the Earth
Formed, Life had Already Figured out Plenty of Tricks

(209) UNSW, Deborah Smith , December 2017 : Living on thin air: microbe mystery solved

(210) Science alert, Michelle Starr, december 2017: Mushrooms Played a Truly Surprising Role in Forming Our
Planet's Atmosphere

(211) Leonard David, Barry DiGregorio, January 2018: Curiosity Mars Rover Investigates Eye-catching, Odd
Features
(212) Rosita Suenson(ESA), Dwayne C.Brown(NASA), Joanna R.Wendel(NASA) 2018: ESA and NASA to
investigate bringing Martian soil to Earth

(213) H. Jay Melosh and Alina Alexeenko, May 2018: Opinion: Tesla’s space-cruising Roadster is carrying a
huge load of Earth’s germs

(214) Jennifer L. Eigenbrode, et all , Science June 2018: Organic matter preserved in 3-billion-year-old
mudstones at Gale crater, Mars

(215) Christopher R. Webster et all, Science June 2018: Background levels of methane in Mars’ atmosphere
show strong seasonal variations

(216) Pietro Cambi, March 2017: There was life on Mars and not only on Saturday night ...

(217) Giorgio Bianciardi, Vincenzo Rizzo, Maria Eugenia Farias and Nicola Cantasano, Astrobiology Outreach
2015: Microbialites at Gusev Crater, Mars.

(218) Vincenzo Rizzo,Maria Eugenia Farias, Nicola Cantasano, Daniela Billi, Manuel Contreras, Francesca
Pontenani, Giorgio Bianciardi, Cell Biology 2015: Structures/textures of living/fossil microbialites and their
implications in biogenicity. An astrobiological point of view

(219) Barry DiGregorio, Contact in Context 2012, Mars – No longer the Red planet but rather, the Golden
Brown planet

(220) Fraser Cain, Universe today June 6, 2008, Mars Tilt

(221) Vincenzo Rizzo, Nicola Cantasano, International Journal of Astrobiology, September 2016: Structural
parallels between terrestrial microbialites and Martian sediments: are all cases of ‘Pareidolia’?

(222) G. L. Villanueva, M. J. Mumma, et all, Science 05 Mar 2015, Strong water isotopic anomalies in the
martian atmosphere: Probing current and ancient reservoirs

(223) R. Gabriel Joseph, Regina S. Dass, V. Rizzo, N. Cantasano, G. Bianciardi, Journal of Astrobiology and
Space Science Reviews, 1,40--81, 2019:: Evidence of Life on Mars?

(224) T.A.Krupa LPSC 2017, Flowing water with a photosynthetic life form in Gusev crater on Mars

(225) Kirsi Lehto, Ursa 2019, Astrobiologia

(226) Harry Rabb, LPI Contrib. No. 2108, 2019, Visual identification of Extant Martian life

(227) NASA, Conference in Carlsbad, New Mexico 2019, Mars Extant Life: What’s Next?

(228) Gilbert V.Levin Scientific American blog, october 2019, I’m Convinced We Found Evidence of Life on
Mars in the 1970s

(229) Patricia Ann Straat 2019, To Mars with Love

(230) Michelle Starr, Science Alert November 2019, Oxygen on Mars Is Behaving in a Way Scientists Can't
Explain

(231) Evan Gough, Universe Today November 2019, Molecular Oxygen on Mars is Behaving Unusually
Through the Seasons. A Sign of Life?

(232) Melissa Trainer et.al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, 2019, Seasonal variations in
atmospheric composition as measured in Gale Crater, Mars

(233) Evan Gough , Universe Today, November 20, 2019, Scientists Search for Ancient Fossils in Australia,
Practicing the Techniques They’ll Use on Mars

(234) Barry DiGregorio 2020, ON VERA RUBIN RIDGE: TRACE FOSSILS ON MARS?

(235) Vincenzo Rizzo, International Journal of Astrobiology, Cambridge University press, March 2020, Why
should geological criteria used on Earth not be valid also for Mars? Evidence of possiblemicrobialites and
algae in extinct Martian lakes

(236) Gilbert V.Levin ICAMSR May 2020, Will the MSR be infected by the COVID-19?

(X-1) Harry Rabb, 2015 book on Scribd: Life on Mars - Visual Investigation.

(X-3) Harry Rabb, YouTube channel

(X-4) Mars Images - H. Rabb, Google Photo site

(X-5) Mars Today - H. Rabb, Google Photo site

(X-6) Life on Mars Presentation - Rabb2018

In images below are some more interesting objects which I have not handled in main article.

Fig.17.1. Sol 1082: The holes in the stone. Sol 2, the Bunny case. MOC 2012 image: interesting
square, size 2x2 kilometers.

Fig.17.2. Sol 305: Note the blue color of the stones and note how the soil close to these stones
has same color. The Opportunity Sol 4382 microscopic imager image of revealed underground
soil has several interesting objects.
Fig.17.3. Sol 1065: Fresh meteor impact? On Opportunity 2005-10-18 image there is similar.
Spirit Sol 822 (image by Dr.L.W.Small): White fungi?

Fig.17.4. Sol 901 object has 2 similar objects, A - large one, and B - similar smaller one. Sol 640:
Nice green surface and holes in a probable iron meteor.
Appendix B: Image processing
Here I tell details how to process Curiosity and Opportunity images to get the natural colors.

Curiosity images
The Gimp image processing software is free:
https://www.gimp.org/

The major improvement to Curiosity images comes from this: In Gimp "Color" tab select
"Automatic" -> White balance. This very simple action returns natural colors. The same blue
sky colors that NASA has used in some press release images. And this operation gives more
details.

Fig.17.4. Curiosity images 2016. Note also that in the MRO HiRISE image, targeted on
Curiosity, the colors match the upper row.
Opportunity and Spirit images
For Opportunity and Spirit images the free software "ImageJ" is excellent: http://imagej.net/

You can produce natural color images from the black and white archive images taken with blue,
green and red filters. The file names of the originals have L2, L5, L7 or R2, R5, R7 included. In
imageJ: First Open one by one the 3 images.

In "Image" tab select "Color" and then "Merge channels". Then opens a tab where you select
the red, green and blue original files. Then "OK" and you get final color result. Then "File"->
save as jpeg.

For the final fine tuning I use Microsoft office picture manager. And if there is some dark areas
in image and only those should be made brighter, then Windows live photo gallery has very
good tone balancing for it.

Fig.17.5. Opportunity and Spirit images

Appendix C: Guidelines for visual search for life on Mars
To search candidates for past or current life in Mars rover images, the following guidelines can
be given as a summary:

 Look close. The scale of Martian life is small. Check images where rover cameras are
directed downwards and close.
 Look at shadow places and undersides of rock cliffs. Those are places where ultraviolet
light of the Sun does not reach, and also the rock above partly provides protection from
cosmic radiation.
 Check distorted soil by rover wheels and sand piles resulting from drilling. The fresh
underground soil can provide surprises.
 All Curiosity MAHLI and ChemCam images are good to check. They are directed to
interesting targets.
 Time series: If there are images taken of same area during several days, look for changes.
 Colors: Check objects which color differs from overall background. After Gimp auto
white balancing candidate fossils have had specific gray color. And current candidate
extant life has had deep blue, green, white and yellow colors.
 Check repeating patterns and textures.
 Symmetry: Living things often have symmetry planes, by which the two sides can be
mirrored

Finding one interesting looking object is a good beginning. But finding second or more similar
objects allows classification and confirmation that the object class may really be something
interesting.

Think about possible Earth analogs for discoveries: If life on Mars and Earth base to same DNA
and evolution has followed same kind of tracks, then the discoveries may have similarities with
past or current Earth life.
Appendix D: Fermi Paradox - Where is everybody?
Fermi paradox is: "If our galaxy has several civilizations, capable of interstellar space travel,
why we don’t have frequent alien visitors here on Earth?".

Latest Drake equation estimate for number of civilizations developing technology in our galaxy
is about 5000 civilizations, by Claudio Maccone.

.Let's consider following possibility as a solution to the Fermi paradox:

In adult human body on Earth there is over 1 kg of microbes, bacteria which we need. We
cannot exist without them. Same kind of symbiosis with their own home planet microbes
probably exist with alien species, especially if alien life bases to same DNA molecule as ours.

Statement 1. The macroscopic life on Earth is in balance with its microbes.

Statement 2. Life on other distant alien planet is in balance with its own microbes.

If alien species would visit us and make a physical contact, then the microbial life of the aliens
is spread and mixed to Earth. And also the aliens are infected by Earth microbes. And the end
result can be:

Result 1: Both the aliens and humans are killed by the microbes.
Result 2: Only the other one is killed
Result 3: No harm from microbes, both survive. Because of panspermia mechanism [105,106],
the microbes between habitable planets in our galaxy are exchanged all the time. A kind of
interstellar vaccination.

So this could be a planetary protection issue. If the first case is the probable result, then
intelligent alien species would be wise enough to avoid direct physical contact. Or at least
perform extensive biological tests before the contact.

In Breakthrough initiatives there is the Starshot project where the plan is to send small ultra-
light nanocrafts to the nearest star Alpha Centauri, to get images of recently discovered Earth-
like planet Proxima b. The nanocrafts should be sterilized extremely well. Just in case.. ..
Something to think about for the Breakthrough initiatives board: Yuri Milner and Mark
Zuckerberg. When we send nanocrafts to Proxima b, then we are the aliens to possible habitants
of Proxima b. But are we wise?

One possibility is that the basic assumption of Fermi paradox is completely wrong and we have
been visited. About 3 billion years after big bang (10 billion years ago) the massive stars had
produced enough heavy elements by supernova explosions to make emergence of DNA based
life possible. Civilizations with capability to interstellar space travel could have developed
much before our solar system was born 4.6 billion years ago. If so we can ask: Have all
habitable environments in our Milky Way galaxy already been habited? We Earthlings may be
latecomers. Interesting related issue is also the Zoo hypothesis , and evolution biologists
William D. Hamilton's ideas about it: New York Times, Robert Wright, December 2016: Can
Evolution Have a ‘Higher Purpose’?

Fig.17.6. Model for birth of life on Milky Way galaxy based on panspermia mechanism.

Another solution to Fermi paradox, The Great Filter, is handled by Patrick Rowan in January
2017 Skywatch: Can narcissism explain the Fermi paradox?. Related writing is also by Tim
Urban 2014: The Fermi Paradox. The idea in Great Filter solution is that when a civilization
develops science and technology, it may reach a point of self-destruction. As one example is
development of nuclear weapons, and a global war with these weapons.

And see Professor Nick Bostrom of Oxford University explaining the relation of The Great
Filter solution of Fermi Paradox and the discovery of Life on Mars, 2008:
WHERE ARE THEY?. Dr. Bostrom writes well. But the there is one basic problem in his
assumptions of probabilities. The panspermia mechanism increases the probabilities for life in
our galaxy. Life does not have to be born from scratch again in every new planet. Instead
microbial life spreads relatively fast from planet to planet in our galaxy with microbes traveling
inside meteorites and comets. Dr. Bostrom is the director of Future of Humanity Institute and
director of Strategic Artificial Intelligence Research Center.

My own hypothesis is that there are in our Milky Way galaxy civilizations, which have been
wise enough and passed The Great Filter billions of years ago. And they would be capable to
interstellar travel and capable to habit other habitable planets. We humans have just started to
dream of these same steps and we have started to take the first steps. And I see the Zoo
hypothesis as a valid alternative, and also Dr. Bostrom says in his article: "I don’t see how we
can conclusively rule out this possibility". There is hope to pass the Great Filter. But first we
must learn to protect our own planet Earth. We must handle the climate change and the risk of
using nuclear weapons. And the world leaders should be intelligent enough to handle these
global issues. But to make it clear once more: The NASA plan to bring Martian microbes, alien
life, directly to Earth on 2030 decade may be the most potential Great Filter coming closer to
us.

The Alcubierre drive is interesting possibility for fast interstellar space travel for advanced
civilizations. If there would be frequent alien visitors on Earth, then the planetary protection
rules possibly could be relaxed. In that case microbes from several other planets of our galaxy
would already have been mixed to Earth biosphere.

Appendix E: Astrobiology conferences in Reno and

Carlsbad
In May 2017 I got invitation by Dr. Kelly Smith to participate the conference: Social and
Conceptual Issues in Astrobiology in University of Nevada, Reno USA, in 13th-15th of April
2018. Dr. Smith is Professor of Philosophy & Biological Sciences in Clemson University. Read
also interesting article by Smith, May 2016: Do no harm to life on Mars? Ethical limits of Prime
Directive. In the SoCIA meeting there was participants from several universities, NASA and
SETI institute.

On 25th of October 2017 my abstract was approved to SoCIA 2018. Below is the title slide of
my presentation on 14th of April. Totally I had 44 slides, where I present the key issues of my
Life on Mars web site. The full slide set is here:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/s9E8EcVGMrRbFmtj2.
All the Abstracts of SoCIA 2018 are available: in the program select "PDF version of the
program" to see them. I recommend to read excellent abstract by Margaret Race from SETI
institute, on page 19. My abstract is on same page. Margaret writes: As SoCia researchers
analyze Astrobiology from varied theoretical perspectives and non-science disciplines, they can
come face to face with extreme situations and concerns that are no longer the realm of science
fiction. Also her last statement is absolutely correct: The specific examples will include global
catastrophic hazards and existential risks; long duration human missions beyond Earth orbit;
and analysis of risks and potential biohazards posed by round trip missions to Mars. . Read also
abtracts by Erik Persson(Lund University), on page 18, Linda Billings(NASA Planetary
Defense office) on page 6, Barry E.DiGregorio (University of Buckingham) on page 8, Brian
Green (Santa Clara University ) on page 9, Jacob Haqq-Misra (Blue Marble Space Institute) on
page 9 and Michael Waltemathe (Ruhr University) on page 21. The abstract by these scientist
handle issues which are important considering planetary protection.
Read also NASA event information about the meeting: Social and Conceptual Issues in
Astrobiology (SOCIA 2018). Direct quote: ..we are on the brink of one of the most important
discoveries in human history. Should this come to pass, we will immediately confront a series of
extremely complex challenges that cannot be resolved without strong input from disciplines
other than the sciences.

Below is part of the program. There was 2 presentations going on all the time.

My presentation in Socia conference went well. It was great to have Dr. Margaret Race from
SETI institute in the audience. The discussion afterwards and established contacts are valuable.

General view of scientists was that we should not send humans to Mars. We must first solve
ecological problems here on earth before we colonialize and mess up other planets. This was
brought up also by great presentations by Lori Marino and Brian Green. In Reno I had an
unforgettable discussion with Dr. Race concerning planetary protection regarding Mars and
Earth. The next Socia meeting will be in Mississippi 2020, and there is a preliminary plan to
have Socia 2022 in Finland.
In discussions it was brought up that NASA takes planetary protection seriously. The problem
is that the rules by COSPAR are recommendations, and there are no international laws which
would force all space agencies and private companies to fully take into account the planetary
protection. That is why it is difficult to control player like SpaceX. This leads of course to a
dangerous situation in future.

On 12th of November 2018 I presented my study in Helsinki Observatory, Finland. The

occasion was the autumn meeting by Friends of the Observatory. Thanks for M.Voipio and
M.Af Heurlin for the invitation. Link to Finnish language slideset. The new slideset is an
improved version of the presentation in SoCIA 2018 in University of Nevada( slideset ). The
title "Astrobiologiaa Marsista ja seuraukset planeettojen suojelulle" can be translated
as "Astrobiology from Mars and implications to planetary protection".
Interesting conference is on November 2019: Mars Extant Life: What’s Next?. It is kept in National Cave and
Karst Research Institute, Carlsbad, New Mexico. My abstract Visual identification of Extant Martian life was
approved on the agenda of NASA organized conference. Among the presenters and abstract authors are several
astrobiologists, whose work I refer here: Beaty, Schulze-Makuch, Eigenbrode, Lanza, Des Marais, Levin,
DiGregorio, …. Nice to see even word paleontology among the abstract titles. One purpose of the conference is
to plan the future MARS exploration for investigating extant life. One alternative could be to send a rover with
better instruments back to Gale crater. The benefit would be that you don’t have to search candidates for life
again in another location. You could drive the rover directly to places which have candidates for life, for
example back to John Klein site (Curiosity Sol 186,270). The conference conveners are:
David Beaty Mars Program Office, Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Caltech.
Michael Meyer NASA Headquarters
Penelope Boston NASA Astrobiology Institute
Mary Voytek NASA Headquarters
Brandi Carrier Mars Program Office, Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Caltech

.
Appendix F: Perseverance at Jezero crater 2021
On 18th of February 2021 NASA Perseverance made a soft landing to Jezero crater. Here is the link to RAW
image files. In the first color images there is at once interesting objects for further study. See also my Mars
rover's image archive Mars Today.

On image below, on right, near the wheel, we may see dissolution cavities on stones. Barry DiGregorio made a
groundbreaking study about dissolution cavities in Martian stones: Barry E. DiGregorio, Dissolution cavities in
Upper Ordovician sandstones from Lake Ontario: Analogs to vesiculated rocks on Mars?, Proc. SPIE 4859,
Instruments, Methods, and Missions for Astrobiology V, (26 February 2003). Dissolution cavities means the
following: An organism dies and gets buried in soil. During time it gets fossilized. Later acidic water can wear
out the fossilized organism leaving only the hole left to the stone, a kind of negative fossil. Barry shows in this
article that the holes in Martian stones may have formed this way as similar stones holes in Earth.
Appendix G: A small piece of humor

Fig.17.6.Blueberry soup!