À In this issue À

Å The cover image is Ron Levin’s processing of an image from Mars rover Opportunity. His research is the subject of our third article concluding that the smooth, semi-translucent bluish features in this one-square-meter area on a Martian crater floor could be ponds.

Å Webmaster Don Holeman pointed out that the Roman (serif) fonts we usually use for this publication may be best suited for print, but sans serif fonts are easier to read on screen. Don recommended the Georgia font, which we are trying out for the electronic edition of this issue. Readers experienced with fonts or who find the readability improved or worsened are encouraged to comment to <tomvf@metaresearch.org>.

Å Our quote boxes in this issue all have the same theme – short-sightedness by some of the leading experts of the times. The five quotes (between articles) are spaced in time roughly a generation apart. It’s now time for yet another famous expert to make history by being short-sighted once again; but of course, it takes a while before that becomes evident to everyone. Our readers are encouraged to send in their nominations for “most short-sighted expert” of the early 21^st century. We’ll post most of them and let the future judge our ability to see through the authorities of the times when they lack sufficient vision of the future.

Å Our readers have come to expect to learn first of many major astronomy-related breakthroughs in this publication, often years in advance of general coverage in most other media. Our 15-year record of research results and prediction successes is unparalleled by any other publication in the field. In this, our “Life on Mars” issue, we hope to continue that record.

Å Our first three articles deal with the researches of Gilbert Levin and Ron Levin, who describe good cause to conclude from the data of several spacecraft missions that the results are now in and are decisive: There is water-ice, there is liquid water, and there are living microbes on Mars right now, today.

Å In our fourth article, we comment on why NASA has not endorsed these major findings of extraterrestrial life on Mars, allowing outside scientists and space agencies for other countries to claim these discoveries for themselves and leaving the major media uncertain about how to proceed.

Å Meta Science in the News begins with recent reports of subterranean caves on Mars, which we conclude are real but probably of natural origin. We follow with a note about updates to the sound track of our “Violent history of Mars” video from the previous issue. The third news note reports on the ESA response to SPSR inquiries about the “horn” feature on ESA’s media release image of the Cydonia Face, which is non-existent in the raw data and all other images to date. Then Michael Fischer writes about how the new Stardust mission results so clearly support the EPH, yet no one has commented on this in the journals. Finally, we report on the first well-confirmed occultation of a star by an asteroid satellite. Occultations played a major role in the initial discovery of asteroid satellites back in 1976, although few credited those early observations, even the confirmed ones, because the idea was thought implausible in the extreme by mainstream theorists of the time. Now the mainstream projects that at least 5% of main belt asteroids have satellites large enough to be discovered under the right conditions. So new occultation data showing not just the existence of another asteroid satellite, but also possible details of the satellite’s size and shape, show once again the folly of dismissing observations rather than dealing with them.