If there are no Martians on Mars, they are probably somewhere near? NASA and Purdue University (USA) believe that the Phobos may be life listed there with Martian meteorites. At least, according to the previously received data, the soil samples from Phobos include a significant amount of material of the red planet.

"Sample from Phobos, which is much easier to hit than on Mars, will almost certainly contain Martian material, embossed into space by the collision of the red planet with a large asteroid, believes one of the authors of the study, a geophysicist JC melos. - If Mars is the life (or was there in the last 10 million years), mission to Phobos can bring us the first evidence of the existence of life beyond Earth".

However, do not fall into euphoria about the upcoming contacts with brothers in mind, emphasizes melos. Unlikely to find in the samples from the Martian satellite signs complex organisms. "We are talking about little green bacteria, not about little green men", - said the scientist.

Even on Earth find meteorites from Mars. Take, ALH84001, in which it was possible to find traces of something resembling microorganisms. But on Phobos, which is much closer to Mars than Earth, Mars substances should be much more!

JC Melosh and his colleagues came to the conclusion that the 200-gram sample extracted from the surface of Phobos, can contain on average 0.1 milligram of the substance from Mars, who left home planet of no more than 10 million years ago, and about 50 million individual particles of Martian soil. Scientists estimate that, if living organisms or their remains, who arrived from Mars, will stay on the surface of Phobos more than 10 million years, under the influence of radiation of any biologically active material will be destroyed.

Previously it was thought that meteorites from the surface of the planet could knock out only such force that will destroy all life on this planet. But several years ago the same JC melos proved that the upper layer of the surface this will not greatly affect where heavy loads will feel the subsoil. So life could escape.

Researchers estimate that in the last 10 million years on the surface of Mars fell at least four large asteroid. More recently, on the red planet discovered the crater Mojave resulting from the impact of a massive asteroid that crashed into the planet about five million years ago. This once again points to the possibility of the presence on the Phobos "fresh" material from Mars.

Due to the recent research, NASA promised that if the mission to Phobos will still take place, you will be taken to the sealed package of the soil, so there could not get extraneous impurity and to bacteria, if they have preserved their livelihoods. Laboratories that will work with samples from Phobos, also plans to maximally protect from unwanted external influences, is capable to damage the material.

The more that, according to experts, the bacteria from Phobos, most likely, are anaerobic, meaning that they are not too successfully operate in an oxygen environment. So earthly conditions for them are not very favorable. This may indicate the traces of methane, which in spots scattered over the surface of Mars. Experts have put forward the theory that emit methane exactly anaerobic bacteria, because the same thing happens on Earth, which is also home to such microorganisms.

Unfortunately, a number of projects Mars Exploration Program ("Program of Mars exploration") was revised NASA due to financial constraints. In particular, it turned out that the flight to Mars system, which will produce soft landing and soil samples, and then come back, would cost much more expensive than similar voyage to Phobos. The fact that the gravity of Mars is 0,378 g, while the Phobos - only about 0,008 g. So automatic station, sent to Mars, must be equipped with a powerful thermal protection and complex system parachute braking. To travel on Phobos, where there is no atmosphere, none of this is required. Such variant is more preferable financially.

Replace "Martian" missions "poroshinskiy" was recently discussed at the seminar "Concepts and approaches to research of Mars" and approved by its participants. As for the script "Andromeda Strain", according to which the alien bacteria can infect humans, the head of research group JC melos refers to it with skepticism. "Every year on the Earth it settles in one ton of Martian material, - it reminds. - In the Solar system there-here are worn considerably larger amounts of substances than people realize. We may be obliged by the origin of the earthly life of Mars".