A new study leads researchers to conclude that there is an extensive amount of water in the interior of Mars, a conclusion that is very different from earlier speculations. Astronomers discovered this by analyzing meteorites that originated from the surface of the planet.

In fact, the research suggests that the volume of water within the Martian mantle is similar to the volume of water in Earth’s upper mantle. In other words, there’s an equal amount of water on Mars, you just have to dig for it.
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It now appears almost certain that the Viking Lander’s life experiment succeeded, and that there is life on Mars. However, NASA interpreted the results too conservatively, and the chance to direct exploration of Mars toward the discovery of life was lost. Now, however, a new look at the results may change all that.

In the Daily Mail, Rob Waugh writes: "In July 1976, the Viking 1 probe touched down on Mars and failed to find traces of life–but now, three decades later, scientists think the experiment was flawed. Viking 1 did find evidence of extraterrestrial microbes in soil samples from the Red Planet."
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Just as NASA was about to solve the mystery of whether or not there is life on Mars, the world went broke and both NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) had to back off on their plans to send astronauts and rovers there to find out. Two NASA missions to Mars–one in 2016 and another in 2018–have been canceled.

In the March 13 edition of the New York Times, Kenneth Chang quotes Planetary Society director Bill Nye as saying, "The pipeline is being shut off, and that’s not what anyone wants. We are closer than anyone has ever been to discovering life on another world."
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