NASA prepares for possible announcement on potential for life on Mars

Weekend press and blog reports have claimed that NASA representatives have briefed the White House regarding the space agency's plan to announce major new discoveries concerning the Phoenix Lander's latest activities and the potential for life on Mars.

Though dismissing rumours that the space administration is preparing to confirm the actual discovery of life, NASA mission controllers are apparently preparing to announce details of the habitability for life, past and present on the Red Planet, according to a weekend report posted in the journal Aviation Week.

The extra information was withheld from a formal announcement by NASA on July 31 that Phoenix had confirmed the presence of water/ice on the planet, a scenario mission scientists expected.

The new data is considered far more "provocative" than the mere finding of water, says the report quoting Phoenix officials.

"They have discovered water on Mars for the third or fourth time," one senior Mars scientist pointed out.

However NASA, through its online Twitter account, denied any such claims.

"Heard about the recent news reports implying I may have found Martian life. Those reports are incorrect," the Tweet message read. "Reports claiming there was a White House briefing are also untrue and incorrect."

Phoenix scientists have said that although the spacecraft is capable of detecting the presence of bacteria, no such life has been located as of yet by its analysing equipment.

However, there is speculation that Phoenix scientists may be preparing an announcement through the journal Science, according to a report in LiveScience.

"The reason that all this seems so hush-hush is due to a future paper and press release that appears likely to pop out of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and its Science magazine," LiveScience reporter David Leonard writes. "Whatever the poop is from the scoop that’s been studied by Phoenix, that information is purportedly going through peer-review."

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