Mars Discoveries Spur Talk of New Mission

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By TOBY STERLING, Associated Press Writer

NOORDWIJK, Netherlands - Scientists said Friday they have discovered active volcanoes and frozen seas on Mars, and called for a follow-up mission to find out if there is life on the red planet.

The recommendations came at the end of a weeklong conference in the Netherlands to analyze results from the European Space Agency's Mars probe.

A poll conducted among 250 conference participants showed that 75 percent now believed life in the form of bacteria once existed on Mars, and 25 percent thought it might still be there.

Scientists long have theorized that there once was water on Mars, the planet most like Earth in our solar system. Data from NASA's Mars Rovers have recently appeared to confirm it. But most believed the water evaporated early in the planet's history, leaving it cold and dry.

Now it appears Mars's core may interact with the surface, meaning there is both warmth and moisture in the planet's recent past.

"This mysterious lady is slowly revealing her secrets," NASA scientist Everett Gibson said.

"From what we've seen Mars meets all the requirements that are needed for life to exist."

The conference revealed ice packs at the planet's poles and the likely existence of a frozen sea near its equator, as well as signs of lava flows 20 million years ago and several recent cones near its North Pole.

"You can see baby cones. I think they're still growing," said Professor Gerhard Neukum, who led the analysis of the high-resolution photographs taken by the Mars Express probe orbiting the planet for the past year.

"I cannot prove it, but the evidence is very suggestive," he said.

News of the discovery of the frozen sea ÔÇö which is the size of Earth's North Sea and appears similar to ice packs on Antarctica in photos ÔÇö made international science headlines on Tuesday.

Gibson, an American invited to join in the analysis of the ESA project, said "our perception has changed" because of the week's findings.

"The closest thing I can compare it to was when we had samples back from the moon," Gibson said. "This week we had good data back from Mars."

ESA's science director David Southwood said the quality of the results from the ESA project and the NASA rovers showed it was time for governments to sponsor a new mission to the planet's surface, and perhaps bring samples back to Earth.

"You don't go back to Mars on the cheap," he said, calling for funding. "No money, no mission."

The ESA probe, which cost $264 million, featured seven different projects including a chemical analysis of Mars' atmosphere measuring the amount of carbon dioxide, methane and other gases. That experiment also showed that a biological origin for the gases was likely, possibly below the planet's icy surface.

Further testing showed the existence of clay and gypsum deposits formed by water in the soil, and indicated that up to 100 tons of matter per day is being blown off the planet into space by solar winds.

A French group found that Mars' ozone layer is thinnest where water vapor is thickest, a finding with possible implications for Earth, where water vapor in the upper atmosphere is believed to be rising.

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