"The voice of Mr. Burroughs calls out on nights when we pace our lawns and eye the Red Planet: 'All the evidence is not in! Maybe ...' "
--RAY BRADBURY, MASTER OF SCIENCE FICTION

NASA officials display Mars rock that some researchers say contains evidence of life AP photo

Maybe, indeed. Maybe those fired by the same notions as Edgar Rice Burroughs, a science-fiction writer before he turned Tarzan chronicler, have peered into the eye of a microscope and seen the stuff of poets' dreams and philosophers' imaginations. Maybe they have ventured to a frontier more extraordinary than those discovered byRenaissance sailors. Maybe they have launched us on a journey that will change our understanding of ourselves and our universe. Maybe the evidence is finally coming in and there is--or was--life on Mars.

Maybe. NASA chief Dan Goldin was lyrical in announcing that conclusion by a team of scientists: "We're now on the doorstep to the heavens. What a time to be alive!" These findings raise the "possibility of a universe burgeoning with life," astronomer Carl Sagan noted. But all agreed there was plenty of reason for caution as the eyes of the world focused on a potato-size rock known as ALH84001. Mineral data and high-tech photographs, says a research team, show that tiny bacteria lived in or near the rock billions of years ago. Yet others wonder if this meteorite found in Antarctica actually came from Mars and whether the purported evidence of biological activity might have originated from lifeless chemical processes...(Continue)