Water, Footprints or Life on Mars? NASA Says; Maybe not!

NASA downplayed Wednesday talk of a major discovery by its Martian rover after remarks by the mission chief raised hopes it may have unearthed evidence life once existed on the Red Planet.

Excitement is building over soon-to-be-released results from NASA's Curiosity rover, which is three months into a two-year mission to determine if Mars has ever been capable of supporting microbial life.

Its Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instruments have been sending back information as it hunts for compounds such as methane, as well as hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen, that would mean life could once have existed there.

In an interview aired Tuesday, lead mission investigator John Grotzinger hinted at something major but said there would be no announcement for several weeks.

"We're getting data from SAM," he said. "This data is gonna be one for the history books. It's looking really good."

A spokesman for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managing the project, appeared to pour cold water Wednesday on the hopes of space enthusiasts looking forward to an earth-shattering discovery.

"John was delighted about the quality and range of information coming in from SAM during the day a reporter happened to be sitting in John's office last week. He has been similarly delighted by results at other points during the mission so far," spokesman Guy Webster reported.

"The scientists want to gain confidence in the findings before taking them outside of the science team. As for history books, the whole mission is for the history books," Webster said.

Scientists do not expect Curiosity to find aliens or living creatures but they hope to use it to analyze soil and rocks for signs the building blocks of life are present and may have supported life in the past.

The $2.5 billion Curiosity rover, which landed in Gale Crater on Mars on August 6, 2012, also aims to study the Martian environment to prepare for a possible human mission there in the coming years.

US President Barack Obama has vowed to send humans to the planet by 2030.

NASA LRO: Apollo Footprints on the Moon

Biggest dinosaur prints found in French Jurassic park

pa.press.net

Paleontologists in eastern France have reported the discovery of some of the largest dinosaur footprints ever documented, measuring about 1.4 meters to 1.5 meters (4.6 feet to 4.9 feet) in diameter.

The site of the find, high in the Jura mountains, was once a literal sauropod stomping ground: So far, 20 prints scattered on a 10-hectare (25-acre) site have been uncovered, paleontologist Jean-Michel Mazin of France's National Center of Scientific Research told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Researchers believe there are hundreds, or even thousands, more still hidden, Mazin said.

The well-preserved footprints from the Late Jurassic period will help scientists learn more about sauropods, long-necked plant eaters that were giants among the dinosaurs. The hulking beasts who left their footprints in the mud 150 million years ago weighed 30 to 40 metric tons (33 to 44 tons) and were more than 25 meters (82 feet) long, the French research center said.

From the prints, "we can calculate their size and speed, find out about their behavior and learn how they got around," said Mazin, who is studying the site along with fellow researcher Pierre Hantzpergue. Their discovery was announced Tuesday.

Several scientists who are not connected with the project said the prints appeared to be among the biggest ever found internationally, though they noted that slightly larger tracks have been recorded elsewhere.