=START= XMT: 18:48 Fri Oct 26 EXP: 19:00 Fri Nov 02

MARS EXPERTS GATHER TO DEBATE THE QUESTION, "ARE WE ALONE?"

CAPE CANAVERAL, FL (OCT. 26) REUTER - Scientists from the
United States, the Soviet Union and Europe will gather at
the weekend to explore the possibilities, or dismiss the
theories, of life on the ''angry red planet,'' Mars.

Experts are divided into three camps -- those who think Mars
never could have supported life, those who suspect some type
of microscopic bacteria do live on the planet, and those who
believe that life did exist on Mars but is now extinct.

''We expect some fireworks because of the widely differing
opinions about the existence of life on Mars,'' said Dr Imre
Friedmann, organiser of the conference at Florida State
University. Friedmann has published research raising the
possibility that primitive Martian life forms lived and
died, similar to lichens found thriving in Antarctic rocks.

Finding an answer to the question ''Are we alone?'' is
essential before humans can set foot on Mars, scientists
say, to protect both human explorers and the Martian
environment from alien intrusions.

President George Bush set a goal of 2019 for US astronauts
to land on Mars. The Soviets want to get cosmonauts there
nine years sooner. Both plan unmanned life-seeking
preparatory missions in the next few years.

Most knowledge about Mars has come from the US National
Aeronautics and Space Administration's two Viking probes
launched in 1975.

From orbit, the spacecraft photographed polar ice caps and
dry lake beds and stream channels. Automated life-seeking
landers analysed the atmosphere and surface composition but
turned up only inconclusive evidence of biochemical
reactions in the soil.

That knowledge is not enough for scientists who want to know
why Earth and Mars evolved so differently in spite of their
relatively close size and position in the solar system.

Exobiologists, specialists in the hunt for life beyond
Earth, say water -- the necessary element to sustain life --
is frozen at the poles and flowed across the red planet
three to four billion years ago.

They say Mars had a more Earth-like climate and active
volcanoes then, too. But the planet's interior cooled
quickly and its crust stopped moving. Unlike Earth, Mars is
seismically dead and without heat to power plate tectonics,
it cannot recycle life-sustaining elements.

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Ty Holder
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