In the emotional soap opera that is the search for life on Mars,
one of the main players—the habitability of Martian soil—may
have just lapsed into a coma. Overturning reports from last
month that Martian soil may be nutritional enough for asparagus
to grow, a new report from the Phoenix lander indicates that it
may not be as much of a gardener’s dream as first hoped.
Instead, the latest results show that the dirt from the lander’s
location may contain perchlorates, highly oxidizing substances
that could doom “any potential life.” NASA personnel quickly
clarified the meaning of the discovery, especially in the face
of unexplained rumors that it had briefed the White House on
Martian life. “Finding perchlorates is neither good nor bad for
life, but it does make us reassess how we think about life on
Mars,” said the Jet Propulsion Lab’s Michael Hecht in a NASA
news release. “Initial MECA analyses suggested Earthlike soil,”
commented Phoenix principal investigator Peter Smith. “Further
analysis has revealed un-E