posted on Aug, 3 2008 @ 12:31 AM
Dutch (breaking) NEWS!!!
I will translate into english and post no links because you guys cant read dutch so why bother:
The White House has been alerted by NASA about plans to make an announcement soon on major new Phoenix lander discoveries concerning the search for
life on Mars, scientists tell Aviation Week & Space Technology.
The data are much more complex than results related NASA's July 31 announcement that Phoenix has confirmed the presence of water at the
site.
International news media trumpeted the water confirmation, which was not a surprise to any of the Phoenix researchers. "They have discovered water on
Mars for the third or fourth time," one senior Mars scientists joked about the hubbub around the water announcement.
The other data not discussed openly yet are far more "provocative," Phoenix officials say.
In fact, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory science team for the MECA wet-chemistry instrument that made the findings was kept out of a July 31 news
conference at the University of Arizona Phoenix control center. The goal was to prevent them from being asked any questions that could reveal
information before NASA is ready to make an announcement, sources say.
The Bush Administration's Presidential Science Advisor's office, however, has been briefed on the new information that NASA hopes to release as
early as mid August. It is possible an announcement would not come until September, to allow for additional analysis. That will depend upon the
latest results still being analyzed from the spacecraft's organic oven and soil chemistry laboratories.
MECA's two microscopes have the resolution to detect bacteria--which would be life. Sources, however, say the microscopes have not detected
bacteria.
It is intriguing that MECA could have found anything more positive than that, but NASA and the University of Arizona are taking steps to prevent
word from leaking out on the nature of the discovery made during MECA's second soil test, in which water from Earth was automatically stirred
with Martian soil.