Top 10: Controversial pieces of evidence for extraterrestrial life (New Scientist, 2006)
1. 1976, The Viking Mars landers detect chemical signatures indicative
of life
2. 1977, The unexplained extraterrestrial "Wow!" signal is
detected by an Ohio State University
radio telescope
3. 1996, Martian "fossils" are discovered in meteorite ALH80041 from
Antarctica
4. 2001, A more rigorous estimate of the "Drake equation" suggests that our
galaxy may contain hundreds of
thousands of life-bearing planets
5. 2001, The red tinge of Jupiter's moon Europa proposed to be due to
frozen bits of bacteria, which also
helps explain the mysterious infrared
signal it gives off
6. 2002, Russian scientists argue that a mysterious radiation-proof microbe
may have evolved on Mars
7. 2002, Chemical hints of life are found in old data from Venus probes
and landers. Could microbes exist in
Venusian clouds?
8. 2003, Sulphur traces on Jupiter's moon Europa may be the waste products
of underground bacterial colonies
9. 2004, Methane in the Martian atmosphere hints at microbial
metabolism
10. 2004, A mysterious radio signal is received by the SETI project on three
occasions - from the same region of
space
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