JAN 19, 2009 - Not a Dead Planet is about the most exciting news this century, to anyone of a cosmic frame of mind. (Granted, the 2008 US Presidential Election results rank pretty high.) There have been hints of life on Mars since the discovery of the Martian meteorite in the closing years of the 20th Century, and the confirmation of at least ancient water flows by robot landers on the Red Planet over the past several years. But these things merely suggest that life may have existed on Mars a very long time ago. The current findings, that methane plumes are now being released from below the surface of Mars, speak to the possiblity that some form of organic life is there at this very moment. True, that's not the only explanation for those methane emissions: they could be due to volcanic venting, for example. To astrologers, the planets are very much alive. That one of them shows evidence that it may be harboring life at the same instant that life here is wondering about it . . . well, that's just cosmic.
