A Brief History
On August 6, 1996, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the United States announced that a piece of a meteorite believed to have originated on Mars known as Allan Hills 84001 contained traces of extraterrestrial life.
Digging Deeper
The meteorite, found in the Allan Hills in Antarctica back in 1984, contained fossils of bacteria, which implies that such life had existed on Mars when the chunk of rock broke off and made its journey to Earth.
Of course, the world took this news with enormous interest, and even President Clinton dedicated a speech about the discovery. Alas, not all scientists agreed with the analysis of the evidence and the 4 billion year old rock may or may not present proof of extraterrestrial life. We await a more definitive event to prove such alien life forms.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Bolte, Mari. Finding Life in the Universe. Cherry Lake Publishing, 2022.
Murdin, Paul. The Universe: A Biography. Thames & Hudson, 2022.
The featured image in this article, a photo of the martian meteorite ALH84001, is in the public domain in the United States because it was solely created by NASA. NASA copyright policy states that “NASA material is not protected by copyright unless noted“. (See Template:PD-USGov, NASA copyright policy page or JPL Image Use Policy.)
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