Lagrange 5

waypoint to the past, present, and future of space

Saturday, February 19, 2005

NASA scientist refutes Space.com article

An article reporting that life may currently exist on Mars -- a claim allegedly made by NASA scientists -- was sharply refuted by one of those scientists in a recent e-mail, even before an official statement by NASA was made public.

"The story is based on hearsay and is factually incorrect," according to Dr. Carol Stoker, of NASA's Ames Research Center, writing in a private e-mail to a colleague in New Mexico.

Stoker is one of two NASA employees used indirectly as sources for Space.com's February 16 article.

The e-mail, undated but apparently written on Thursday, February 17, was leaked on the bulletin board of Bad Astronomy, a space-related blog.

Stoker went on to write that no paper had been submitted to a journal making any such claim.

NASA Watch has coverage of the controversy here.

The Space.com article said that two scientists from NASA's Ames facility claimed to have found evidence of present life on Mars, and had submitted their findings to a scientific journal for peer review and publication.

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