Word: martian
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...whole, NASA has always treated Mars with respect. American spacecraft have flown by, orbited and even landed on the Red Planet. What they've never done is wound it. If scientists ever hope to understand Mars fully, however, they are going to have to puncture the dry Martian rind to sample the planetary pulp below. Next week NASA will launch a ship that will begin that process...
...upcoming mission is a two-spacecraft extravaganza. The first ship--set to fly Dec. 10--is the workmanlike Mars Climate Orbiter. Arriving in September 1999, the spacecraft will enter an orbit of the planet that traces a path over the Martian poles, allowing it to study the local atmosphere. Its orbit will position it perfectly to act as a relay satellite for any later ship that may land on the surface. That's a good thing, since three weeks or so after the orbiter leaves Earth, NASA will launch another spacecraft, the more ambitious Mars Polar Lander...
...pissed off his new fans--the ones who saw the brilliance of "Roadrunner" and wanted more--was that his new songs weren't just happier; they really were directed at infants. He sang songs like "Hey There Little Insect" and "I'm A Little Dinosaur" and "Here Come the Martian Martians." He stopped playing with professional musicians and picked strangers out of the audience at concerts; they'd drum for him using rolled up newspapers. It took him a couple of years, but by 1979's Back in Your Life, he had snapped out of it, and he now plays...
Listen: There is no evidence of life on Mars. Meteorite AH 84001, that chunk of Martian rock which was found in the Antarctic two years ago bearing what appeared to be traces of tiny bacteria, got a thorough debunking Friday. No less than three papers in the Journal of Meteoritics and Planetary Science attack the rock's so-called organic evidence. Little crevices in its side that were supposed to contain bacterial traces have been the subject of intense scrutiny and heated debate for some time, but the jury has now effectively returned a verdict: Not Possible...
...Sears, the journal's editor, the clincher came when AH 84001 was compared with rocks from the moon -- the control experiment of lifelessness. "Within an hour of looking at the lunar meteorites, we knew," said Sears. "We found objects on the lunar meteorites that we cannot distinguish from the Martian meteorites." What's more, iron oxide crystals on the rock suggest it was formed at temperatures eight times higher than boiling water -- too high to support life. Not that this means the Red Planet is and always was a dead planet; we just have to look at the other rocks...