
Recently released photos, seen at right, taken by MGS look quite like aerial photos of an Earth desert dotted with shrub growth. But these sand dunes are in the southern hemisphere of Mars. A Hungarian research team, which has been analyzing the photos (and other photos of the same area over time), has concluded that the black dots are indeed living organisms.

"Each spring," writes David Leonard in an article for Space.com, "[the Hungarians] report, 'gray fuzzy spots' appear in the bottom of the ice cover. By the middle of the first half of spring, these spots become darker, are bounded, and grow in size. By early summer defrosting, the naked dark soil of the dune is visible, and surrounded by a lighter ring. Year by year, the dark dune spots 'renew' on the same place with almost the same configuration, or 'constellation' of patches. This repeat action, the team asserts, strengthens their suggestion of fixed, biological causes of spot formation."

The Hungarian scientists conclude that this strongly suggests the life cycle of some kind of plant life.

NASA and its associated research teams don't agree with this conclusion. Their theory is that the dark spots are "the result of springtime defrosting process on Mars, not signs of biology." A somewhat less dismissive opinion from Bruce Jakosky, a Mars researcher at the University of Colorado in Boulder, states that the conclusion for Martian biology is "premature... when other, simpler processes have not been ruled out."

Another controversial photo, shown above, reveals much larger forms that look like spreading trees as seen from above. No less a personage than respected author Arthur C. Clarke opined that they resemble Earth's Banyan trees. He too noted that these forms appear to change with the seasons, growing with the warmth and increased sunlight of Mars's spring season, just as vegetation would. But NASA has likewise explained these shapes as some kind of freezing/defrosting phenomenon or a part of the "bizarre geology" of Mars.
