title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Of the current population of Taiwanese aborigines, about 70% identify themselves as Christian. Many of the Plains groups have mobilized their members around Christian organizations; most notably the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan and Catholicism.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Before contact with Christian missionaries during both the Dutch and Qing periods, Taiwanese aborigines held a variety of beliefs in spirits, gods, sacred symbols and myths that helped their societies find meaning and order. Although there is no evidence of a unified belief system shared among the various indigenous groups, there is evidence that several groups held supernatural beliefs in certain birds and bird behavior. The Siraya were reported by Dutch sources to incorporate bird imagery into their material culture. Other reports describe animal skulls and the use of human heads in societal beliefs. The Paiwan and other southern groups worship the Formosan hundred pacer snake and use the diamond patterns on its back in many designs. In many Plains Aborigines societies, the power to communicate with the supernatural world was exclusively held by women called "Inibs". During the period of Dutch colonization, the "Inibs" were removed from the villages to eliminate their influence and pave the way for Dutch missionary work.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: During the Zheng and Qing eras, Han immigrants brought Confucianized beliefs of Taoism and Buddhism to Taiwan's indigenous people. Many Plains Aborigines adopted Han religious practices, though there is evidence that many aboriginal customs were transformed into local Taiwanese Han beliefs. In some parts of Taiwan the Siraya spirit of fertility, Ali-zu (A-li-tsu) has become assimilated into the Han pantheon. The use of female spirit mediums ("tongji") can also be traced to the earlier matrilineal "Inibs".


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Although many aborigines assumed Han religious practices, several sub-groups sought protection from the European missionaries, who had started arriving in the 1860s. Many of the early Christian converts were displaced groups of Plains Aborigines that sought protection from the oppressive Han. The missionaries, under the articles of extraterritoriality, offered a form of power against the Qing establishment and could thus make demands on the government to provide redress for the complaints of Plains Aborigines. Many of these early congregations have served to maintain aboriginal identity, language and cultures.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: The influence of 19th- and 20th-century missionaries has both transformed and maintained aboriginal integration. Many of the churches have replaced earlier community functions, but continue to retain a sense of continuity and community that unites members of aboriginal societies against the pressures of modernity. Several church leaders have emerged from within the communities to take on leadership positions in petitioning the government in the interest of indigenous peoples and seeking a balance between the interests of the communities and economic vitality.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: The indigenous communities of Taiwan are closely linked with ecological awareness and conservation issues on the island, as many of the environmental issues are spearheaded by aborigines. Political activism and sizable public protests regarding the logging of the Chilan Formosan Cypress, as well as efforts by an Atayal member of the Legislative Yuan, "focused debate on natural resource management and specifically on the involvement of aboriginal people therein". Another high-profile case is the nuclear waste storage facility on Orchid Island, a small tropical island off the southeast coast of Taiwan. The inhabitants are the 4,000 members of the Tao (or Yami). In the 1970s the island was designated as a possible site to store low and medium grade nuclear waste. The island was selected on the grounds that it would be cheaper to build the necessary infrastructure for storage and it was thought that the population would not cause trouble. Large-scale construction began in 1978 on a site from the Immorod fishing fields. The Tao alleges that government sources at the time described the site as a "factory" or a "fish cannery", intended to bring "jobs [to the] home of the Tao/Yami, one of the least economically integrated areas in Taiwan". When the facility was completed in 1982, however, it was in fact a storage facility for "97,000 barrels of low-radiation nuclear waste from Taiwan's three nuclear power plants". The Tao have since stood at the forefront of the anti-nuclear movement and launched several exorcisms and protests to remove the waste they claim has resulted in deaths and sickness. The lease on the land has expired, and an alternative site has yet to be selected.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: The competition between different ways of representing and interpreting indigenous culture among local tourism operators does exist and creates tensions between indigenous tour guides and the NGOs which help to design and promote ethno/ecotourism. E.g., in a Sioulin Township, the government sponsored a project "Follow the Footsteps of Indigenous Hunters". Academics and members from environmental NGOs have suggested a new way of hunting: to replace shotgun with camera. Hunters benefit from the satisfaction of ecotourists who may spot wild animals under the instructions of accompanied indigenous hunters [Chen, 2012]. The rarer the animals are witnessed by tourists, the higher the pay will be to the hunters.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Aboriginal groups are seeking to preserve their folkways and languages as well as to return to, or remain on, their traditional lands. Eco-tourism, sewing and selling carvings, jewelry and music have become viable areas of economic opportunity. However, tourism-based commercial development, such as the creation of Taiwan Aboriginal Culture Park, is not a panacea. Although these create new jobs, aborigines are seldom given management positions. Moreover, some national parks have been built on aboriginal lands against the wishes of the local communities, prompting one Taroko activist to label the Taroko National Park as a form of environmental colonialism. At times, the creation of national parks has resulted in forced resettlement of the aborigines.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: Due to the close proximity of aboriginal land to the mountains, many communities have hoped to cash in on hot spring ventures and hotels, where they offer singing and dancing to add to the ambience. The Wulai Atayal in particular have been active in this area. Considerable government funding has been allocated to museums and culture centers focusing on Taiwan's aboriginal heritage. Critics often call the ventures exploitative and "superficial portrayals" of aboriginal culture, which distract attention from the real problems of substandard education. Proponents of ethno-tourism suggest that such projects can positively impact the public image and economic prospects of the indigenous community.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: The attractive tourist destination includes natural resources, infrastructure, customs and culture, as well as the characteristics of the local industry. Thus, the role of the local community in influencing the tourism development activities is clear. The essence of tourism in today's world is the development and delivery of travel and visitation experiences to a range of individuals and groups who wish to see, understand, and experience the nature of different destinations and the way people live, work, and enjoy life in those destinations. The attitude of local people towards tourists constitutes one of the elements of a destination's tourism value chain.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: The attraction is a tourist area's experience theme, however the main appeal is the formation of the fundamentals of the tourism image in the region [Kao, 1995]. Attraction sources can be diverse, including the area's natural resources, economic activities, customs, development history, religion, outdoor recreation activities, events and other related resources. This way, the awareness of indigenous resources constitutes an attraction to tourists. The aboriginal culture is an important indicator of tourism products' attractiveness and a new type of economic sources.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: While there is an important need to link the economic, cultural, and ecological imperatives of development in the context of tourism enterprises, there is the key question of implementation and how the idea of sustainable tourism enterprises can be translated into reality: formulation of strategies and how they may be expected to interact with important aspects of indigenous culture. In addition to being locally directed and relevant, the planning process for the establishment of an ethno/ecotourism enterprise in an indigenous community should be strategic in nature. The use of a strategic planning process enables indigenous culture to be regarded as an important characteristic requiring careful consideration, rather than a feature to be exploited, or an incidental characteristic that is overshadowed by the natural features of the environment.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: A full-time aboriginal radio station, "Ho-hi-yan", was launched in 2005 with the help of the Executive Yuan, to focus on issues of interest to the indigenous community. This came on the heels of a "New wave of Indigenous Pop", as aboriginal artists, such as A-mei, Pur-dur and Samingad (Puyuma), Difang, A-Lin (Ami), (Paiwan), and Landy Wen (Atayal) became international pop-stars. The rock musician Chang Chen-yue is a member of the Ami. Music has given aborigines both a sense of pride and a sense of cultural ownership. The issue of ownership was exemplified when the musical project Enigma used an Ami chant in their song "Return to Innocence", which was selected as the official theme of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. The main chorus was sung by Difang and his wife, Igay. The Amis couple successfully sued Enigma's record label, which then paid royalties to the French museum that held the master recordings of the traditional songs, but the original artists, who had been unaware of the Enigma project, remained uncompensated.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: In 2016, the administration under President Tsai Ing-wen approved a proposal that designated August 1 as Indigenous Peoples' Day in Taiwan. In celebration of the special day, President Tsai issued an official apology to the country's aboriginal people and outlined steps to further promote legislation and involve organizations related to aboriginal causes, such as the Presidential Office's Indigenous Historical Justice and Transitional Justice Committee. The government hopes the day will remind the public of the diverse ethnic groups in Taiwan by bringing greater respect for indigenous peoples' cultures and history and promoting their rights.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: The Pulima Art Festival (藝術節 also known as Pulima Arts Festival) is a biennial event held since 2012 which showcases Aboriginal and Indigenous art and culture and is the biggest Aboriginal contemporary art event in Taiwan. "Pulima" is a Paiwan word meaning "creative or highly skilled people". Inspired by the Edinburgh Art Festival and the Festival d'Avignon in France, Pulima is supported by the Indigenous Peoples Cultural Foundation. Dancers and musicians from Taiwan as well as abroad feature in the festival, which takes place between November and February every second year, and awards a prize called the Pulima Art Prize.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: The festival was held in Taipei in 2012 and 2014, and in Kaohsiung in 2016. In 2016, the Atamira Dance Company and Black Grace came from New Zealand, and B2M (Bathurst to Melville), a band from the Tiwi Islands, Australia also performed at the festival.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: The 2018 festival took place in the Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei Under the theme "MICAWOR – Turning Over", it displayed the talents of 26 groups of Taiwanese and international artists, and included a series of international forums, artist lectures, workshops and many other events. It collaborated with Melbourne's YIRRAMBOI Festival, with a "Festival in Festival" program.


title: Taiwanese indigenous peoples

text: The Pulima Arts Festival took place from 2020 to 2021 and several videos of participants are available on YouTube.


title: Life on Mars

text: The possibilities of life on Mars is a subject of interest in astrobiology due to the planet's proximity and similarities to Earth. Cumulative evidence suggests that during the ancient Noachian time period, the surface environment of Mars had liquid water and may have been habitable for microorganisms, but habitable conditions do not necessarily indicate life.


title: Life on Mars

text: Scientific searches for evidence of life began in the 19th century and continue today via telescopic investigations and deployed probes. While early work focused on phenomenology and bordered on fantasy, the modern scientific inquiry has emphasized the search for water, chemical biosignatures in the soil and rocks at the planet's surface, and biomarker gases in the atmosphere.


title: Life on Mars

text: Mars is of particular interest for the study of the origins of life because of its similarity to the early Earth. This is especially true since Mars has a cold climate and lacks plate tectonics or continental drift, so it has remained almost unchanged since the end of the Hesperian period. At least two-thirds of Mars's surface is more than 3.5 billion years old, and Mars may thus hold the best record of the prebiotic conditions leading to life, even if life does not or has never existed there, which might have started developing as early as 4.48 billion years ago.


title: Life on Mars

text: Following the confirmation of the past existence of surface liquid water, the "Curiosity", "Perseverance" and "Opportunity" rovers started searching for evidence of past life, including a past biosphere based on autotrophic, chemotrophic, or chemolithoautotrophic microorganisms, as well as ancient water, including fluvio-lacustrine environments (plains related to ancient rivers or lakes) that may have been habitable. The search for evidence of habitability, taphonomy (related to fossils), and organic compounds on Mars is now a primary NASA and ESA objective.


title: Life on Mars

text: The findings of organic compounds inside sedimentary rocks and of boron on Mars are of interest as they are precursors for prebiotic chemistry. Such findings, along with previous discoveries that liquid water was clearly present on ancient Mars, further supports the possible early habitability of Gale Crater on Mars. Currently, the surface of Mars is bathed with ionizing radiation, and Martian soil is rich in perchlorates toxic to microorganisms. Therefore, the consensus is that if life exists—or existed—on Mars, it could be found or is best preserved in the subsurface, away from present-day harsh surface processes.


title: Life on Mars

text: In June 2018, NASA announced the detection of seasonal variation of methane levels on Mars. Methane could be produced by microorganisms or by geological means. The European ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter started mapping the atmospheric methane in April 2018, and the 2022 ExoMars rover "Rosalind Franklin" was planned to drill and analyze subsurface samples before the programme's indefinite suspension, while the NASA Mars 2020 rover "Perseverance", having landed successfully, will cache dozens of drill samples for their potential transport to Earth laboratories in the late 2020s or 2030s. As of February 8, 2021, an updated status of studies considering the possible detection of lifeforms on Venus (via phosphine) and Mars (via methane) was reported.


title: Life on Mars

text: Mars's polar ice caps were discovered in the mid-17th century. In the late 18th century, William Herschel proved they grow and shrink alternately, in the summer and winter of each hemisphere. By the mid-19th century, astronomers knew that Mars had certain other similarities to Earth, for example that the length of a day on Mars was almost the same as a day on Earth. They also knew that its axial tilt was similar to Earth's, which meant it experienced seasons just as Earth does—but of nearly double the length owing to its much longer year. These observations led to increasing speculation that the darker albedo features were water and the brighter ones were land, whence followed speculation on whether Mars may be inhabited by some form of life.


title: Life on Mars

text: In 1854, William Whewell, a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, theorized that Mars had seas, land and possibly life forms. Speculation about life on Mars exploded in the late 19th century, following telescopic observation by some observers of apparent Martian canals—which were later found to be optical illusions. Despite this, in 1895, American astronomer Percival Lowell published his book "Mars," followed by "Mars and its Canals" in 1906, proposing that the canals were the work of a long-gone civilization. This idea led British writer H. G. Wells to write "The War of the Worlds" in 1897, telling of an invasion by aliens from Mars who were fleeing the planet's desiccation.


title: Life on Mars

text: Spectroscopic analysis of Mars's atmosphere began in earnest in 1894, when U.S. astronomer William Wallace Campbell showed that neither water nor oxygen were present in the Martian atmosphere. The influential observer Eugène Antoniadi used the 83-cm (32.6 inch) aperture telescope at Meudon Observatory at the 1909 opposition of Mars and saw no canals, the outstanding photos of Mars taken at the new Baillaud dome at the Pic du Midi observatory also brought formal discredit to the Martian canals theory in 1909, and the notion of canals began to fall out of favor.


title: Life on Mars

text: Chemical, physical, geological, and geographic attributes shape the environments on Mars. Isolated measurements of these factors may be insufficient to deem an environment habitable, but the sum of measurements can help predict locations with greater or lesser habitability potential. The two current ecological approaches for predicting the potential habitability of the Martian surface use 19 or 20 environmental factors, with an emphasis on water availability, temperature, the presence of nutrients, an energy source, and protection from solar ultraviolet and galactic cosmic radiation.


title: Life on Mars

text: Scientists do not know the minimum number of parameters for determination of habitability potential, but they are certain it is greater than one or two of the factors in the table below. Similarly, for each group of parameters, the habitability threshold for each is to be determined. Laboratory simulations show that whenever multiple lethal factors are combined, the survival rates plummet quickly. There are no full-Mars simulations published yet that include all of the biocidal factors combined. Furthermore, the possibility of Martian life having a far different biochemistry and habitability requirements than the terrestrial biosphere is an open question.


title: Life on Mars

text: Recent models have shown that, even with a dense CO atmosphere, early Mars was colder than Earth has ever been. Transiently warm conditions related to impacts or volcanism could have produced conditions favoring the formation of the late Noachian valley networks, even though the mid-late Noachian global conditions were probably icy. Local warming of the environment by volcanism and impacts would have been sporadic, but there should have been many events of water flowing at the surface of Mars. Both the mineralogical and the morphological evidence indicates a degradation of habitability from the mid Hesperian onward. The exact causes are not well understood but may be related to a combination of processes including loss of early atmosphere, or impact erosion, or both.


title: Life on Mars

text: The loss of the Martian magnetic field strongly affected surface environments through atmospheric loss and increased radiation; this change significantly degraded surface habitability. When there was a magnetic field, the atmosphere would have been protected from erosion by the solar wind, which would ensure the maintenance of a dense atmosphere, necessary for liquid water to exist on the surface of Mars. The loss of the atmosphere was accompanied by decreasing temperatures. Part of the liquid water inventory sublimed and was transported to the poles, while the rest became


title: Life on Mars

text: Observations on Earth and numerical modeling have shown that a crater-forming impact can result in the creation of a long-lasting hydrothermal system when ice is present in the crust. For example, a 130 km large crater could sustain an active hydrothermal system for up to 2 million years, that is, long enough for microscopic life to emerge, but unlikely to have progressed any further down the evolutionary path.


title: Life on Mars

text: Soil and rock samples studied in 2013 by NASA's "Curiosity" rover's onboard instruments brought about additional information on several habitability factors. The rover team identified some of the key chemical ingredients for life in this soil, including sulfur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and possibly carbon, as well as clay minerals, suggesting a long-ago aqueous environment—perhaps a lake or an ancient streambed—that had neutral acidity and low salinity. On December 9, 2013, NASA reported that, based on evidence from "Curiosity" studying Aeolis Palus, Gale Crater contained an ancient freshwater lake which could have been a hospitable environment for microbial life. The confirmation that liquid water once flowed on Mars, the existence of nutrients, and the previous discovery of a past magnetic field that protected the planet from cosmic and solar radiation, together strongly suggest that Mars could have had the environmental factors to support life. The assessment of past habitability is not in itself evidence that Martian life has ever actually existed. If it did, it was probably microbial, existing communally in fluids or on sediments, either free-living or as biofilms, respectively. The exploration of terrestrial analogues provide clues as to how and where best look for signs of life on Mars.


title: Life on Mars

text: Impactite, shown to preserve signs of life on Earth, was discovered on Mars and could contain signs of ancient life, if life ever existed on the planet.


title: Life on Mars

text: On June 7, 2018, NASA announced that the "Curiosity" rover had discovered organic molecules in sedimentary rocks dating to three billion years old. The detection of organic molecules in rocks indicate that some of the building blocks for life were present.


title: Life on Mars

text: Conceivably, if life exists (or existed) on Mars, evidence of life could be found, or is best preserved, in the subsurface, away from present-day harsh surface conditions. Present-day life on Mars, or its biosignatures, could occur kilometers below the surface, or in subsurface geothermal hot spots, or it could occur a few meters below the surface. The permafrost layer on Mars is only a couple of centimeters below the surface, and salty brines can be liquid a few centimeters below that but not far down. Water is close to its boiling point even at the deepest points in the Hellas basin, and so cannot remain liquid for long on the surface of Mars in its present state, except after a sudden release of underground water.


title: Life on Mars

text: So far, NASA has pursued a "follow the water" strategy on Mars and has not searched for biosignatures for life there directly since the "Viking" missions. The consensus by astrobiologists is that it may be necessary to access the Martian subsurface to find currently habitable environments.


title: Life on Mars

text: In 1965, the Mariner 4 probe discovered that Mars had no global magnetic field that would protect the planet from potentially life-threatening cosmic radiation and solar radiation; observations made in the late 1990s by the Mars Global Surveyor confirmed this discovery. Scientists speculate that the lack of magnetic shielding helped the solar wind blow away much of Mars's atmosphere over the course of several billion years. As a result, the planet has been vulnerable to radiation from space for about 4 billion years.


title: Life on Mars

text: Recent "in-situ" data from "Curiosity" rover indicates that ionizing radiation from galactic cosmic rays (GCR) and solar particle events (SPE) may not be a limiting factor in habitability assessments for present-day surface life on Mars. The level of 76 mGy per year measured by "Curiosity" is similar to levels inside the ISS.


title: Life on Mars

text: "Curiosity" rover measured ionizing radiation levels of 76 mGy per year. This level of ionizing radiation is sterilizing for dormant life on the surface of Mars. It varies considerably in habitability depending on its orbital eccentricity and the tilt of its axis. If the surface life has been reanimated as recently as 450,000 years ago, then rovers on Mars could find dormant but still viable life at a depth of one meter below the surface, according to an estimate. Even the hardiest cells known could not possibly survive the cosmic radiation near the surface of Mars since Mars lost its protective magnetosphere and atmosphere. After mapping cosmic radiation levels at various depths on Mars, researchers have concluded that over time, any life within the first several meters of the planet's surface would be killed by lethal doses of cosmic radiation. The team calculated that the cumulative damage to DNA and RNA by cosmic radiation would limit retrieving viable dormant cells on Mars to depths greater than 7.5 meters below the planet's surface.


title: Life on Mars

text: Even the most radiation-tolerant terrestrial bacteria would survive in dormant spore state only 18,000 years at the surface; at 2 meters—the greatest depth at which the ExoMars rover will be capable of reaching—survival time would be 90,000 to half a million years, depending on the type of rock.


title: Life on Mars

text: Data collected by the Radiation assessment detector (RAD) instrument on board the "Curiosity" rover revealed that the absorbed dose measured is 76 mGy/year at the surface, and that "ionizing radiation strongly influences chemical compositions and structures, especially for water, salts, and redox-sensitive components such as organic molecules." Regardless of the source of Martian organic compounds (meteoric, geological, or biological), its carbon bonds are susceptible to breaking and reconfiguring with surrounding elements by ionizing charged particle radiation. These improved subsurface radiation estimates give insight into the potential for the preservation of possible organic biosignatures as a function of depth as well as survival times of possible microbial or bacterial life forms left dormant beneath the surface. The report concludes that the "in situ" "surface measurements—and subsurface estimates—constrain the preservation window for Martian organic matter following exhumation and exposure to ionizing radiation in the top few meters of the Martian surface."


title: Life on Mars

text: In September 2017, NASA reported Radiation levels on the surface of the planet Mars were temporarily doubled and were associated with an aurora 25 times brighter than any observed earlier, due to a major, and unexpected, solar storm in the middle of the month.


title: Life on Mars

text: On UV radiation, a 2014 report concludes that "[T]he Martian UV radiation environment is rapidly lethal to unshielded microbes but can be attenuated by global dust storms and shielded completely by < 1 mm of regolith or by other organisms." In addition, laboratory research published in July 2017 demonstrated that UV irradiated perchlorates cause a 10.8-fold increase in cell death when compared to cells exposed to UV radiation after 60 seconds of exposure. The penetration depth of UV radiation into soils is in the sub-millimeter to millimeter range and depends on the properties of the soil.


title: Life on Mars

text: The Martian regolith is known to contain a maximum of 0.5% (w/v) perchlorate (ClO) that is toxic for most living organisms, but since they drastically lower the freezing point of water and a few extremophiles can use it as an energy source (see Perchlorates - Biology) and grow at concentrations of up to 30% (w/v) sodium perchlorate by physiologically adapting to increasing perchlorate concentrations, it has prompted speculation of what their influence would be on habitability.


title: Life on Mars

text: Research published in July 2017 shows that when irradiated with a simulated Martian UV flux, perchlorates become even more lethal to bacteria (bactericide). Even dormant spores lost viability within minutes. In addition, two other compounds of the Martian surface, iron oxides and hydrogen peroxide, act in synergy with irradiated perchlorates to cause a 10.8-fold increase in cell death when compared to cells exposed to UV radiation after 60 seconds of exposure. It was also found that abraded silicates (quartz and basalt) lead to the formation of toxic reactive oxygen species. The researchers concluded that "the surface of Mars is lethal to vegetative cells and renders much of the surface and near-surface regions uninhabitable." This research demonstrates that the present-day surface is more uninhabitable than previously thought, and reinforces the notion to inspect at least a few meters into the ground to ensure the levels of radiation would be relatively low.


title: Life on Mars

text: However, researcher Kennda Lynch discovered the first-known instance of a habitat containing perchlorates and perchlorates-reducing bacteria in an analog environment: a paleolake in Pilot Valley, Great Salt Lake Desert, Utah. She has been studying the biosignatures of these microbes, and is hoping that the Mars Perseverance rover will find matching biosignatures at its Jezero Crater site.


title: Life on Mars

text: Recurrent slope lineae (RSL) features form on Sun-facing slopes at times of the year when the local temperatures reach above the melting point for ice. The streaks grow in spring, widen in late summer and then fade away in autumn. This is hard to model in any other way except as involving liquid water in some form, though the streaks themselves are thought to be a secondary effect and not a direct indication of the dampness of the regolith. Although these features are now confirmed to involve liquid water in some form, the water could be either too cold or too salty for life. At present they are treated as potentially habitable, as "Uncertain Regions, to be treated as Special Regions".). They were suspected as involving flowing brines back then.


title: Life on Mars

text: The thermodynamic availability of water (water activity) strictly limits microbial propagation on Earth, particularly in hypersaline environments, and there are indications that the brine ionic strength is a barrier to the habitability of Mars. Experiments show that high ionic strength, driven to extremes on Mars by the ubiquitous occurrence of divalent ions, "renders these environments uninhabitable despite the presence of biologically available water."


title: Life on Mars

text: After carbon, nitrogen is arguably the most important element needed for life. Thus, measurements of nitrate over the range of 0.1% to 5% are required to address the question of its occurrence and distribution. There is nitrogen (as N) in the atmosphere at low levels, but this is not adequate to support nitrogen fixation for biological incorporation. Nitrogen in the form of nitrate could be a resource for human exploration both as a nutrient for plant growth and for use in chemical processes. On Earth, nitrates correlate with perchlorates in desert environments, and this may also be true on Mars. Nitrate is expected to be stable on Mars and to have formed by thermal shock from impact or volcanic plume lightning on ancient Mars.


title: Life on Mars

text: On March 24, 2015, NASA reported that the SAM instrument on the "Curiosity" rover detected nitrates by heating surface sediments. The nitrogen in nitrate is in a "fixed" state, meaning that it is in an oxidized form that can be used by living organisms. The discovery supports the notion that ancient Mars may have been hospitable for life. It is suspected that all nitrate on Mars is a relic, with no modern contribution. Nitrate abundance ranges from non-detection to 681 ± 304 mg/kg in the samples examined until late 2017. Modeling indicates that the transient condensed water films on the surface should be transported to lower depths (≈10 m) potentially transporting nitrates, where subsurface microorganisms could thrive.


title: Life on Mars

text: In contrast, phosphate, one of the chemical nutrients thought to be essential for life, is readily available on Mars.


title: Life on Mars

text: Further complicating estimates of the habitability of the Martian surface is the fact that very little is known about the growth of microorganisms at pressures close to those on the surface of Mars. Some teams determined that some bacteria may be capable of cellular replication down to 25 mbar, but that is still above the atmospheric pressures found on Mars (range 1–14 mbar). In another study, twenty-six strains of bacteria were chosen based on their recovery from spacecraft assembly facilities, and only "Serratia liquefaciens" strain ATCC 27592 exhibited growth at 7 mbar, 0 °C, and CO-enriched anoxic atmospheres.


title: Life on Mars

text: Liquid water is a necessary but not sufficient condition for life as humans know it, as habitability is a function of a multitude of environmental parameters. Liquid water cannot exist on the surface of Mars except at the lowest elevations for minutes or hours. Liquid water does not appear at the surface itself, but it could form in minuscule amounts around dust particles in snow heated by the Sun. Also, the ancient equatorial ice sheets beneath the ground may slowly sublimate or melt, accessible from the surface via caves.


title: Life on Mars

text: Water on Mars exists almost exclusively as water ice, located in the Martian polar ice caps and under the shallow Martian surface even at more temperate latitudes. A small amount of water vapor is present in the atmosphere. There are no bodies of liquid water on the Martian surface because its atmospheric pressure at the surface averages —about 0.6% of Earth's mean sea level pressure—and because the temperature is far too low, () leading to immediate freezing. Despite this, about 3.8 billion years ago, there was a denser atmosphere, higher temperature, and vast amounts of liquid water flowed on the surface, including large oceans.


title: Life on Mars

text: It has been estimated that the primordial oceans on Mars would have covered between 36% and 75% of the planet. On November 22, 2016, NASA reported finding a large amount of underground ice in the Utopia Planitia region of Mars. The volume of water detected has been estimated to be equivalent to the volume of water in Lake Superior.


title: Life on Mars

text: Analysis of Martian sandstones, using data obtained from orbital spectrometry, suggests that the waters that previously existed on the surface of Mars would have had too high a salinity to support most Earth-like life. Tosca "et al." found that the Martian water in the locations they studied all had water activity, a ≤ 0.78 to 0.86—a level fatal to most Terrestrial life. Haloarchaea, however, are able to live in hypersaline solutions, up to the saturation point.


title: Life on Mars

text: In June 2000, possible evidence for current liquid water flowing at the surface of Mars was discovered in the form of flood-like gullies. Additional similar images were published in 2006, taken by the Mars Global Surveyor, that suggested that water occasionally flows on the surface of Mars. The images showed changes in steep crater walls and sediment deposits, providing the strongest evidence yet that water coursed through them as recently as several years ago.


title: Life on Mars

text: There is disagreement in the scientific community as to whether or not the recent gully streaks were formed by liquid water. Some suggest the flows were merely dry sand flows. Others suggest it may be liquid brine near the surface, but the exact source of the water and the mechanism behind its motion are not understood.


title: Life on Mars

text: In July 2018, scientists reported the discovery of a subglacial lake on Mars, below the southern polar ice cap, and extending sideways about , the first known stable body of water on the planet. The lake was discovered using the MARSIS radar on board the "Mars Express" orbiter, and the profiles were collected between May 2012 and December 2015. The lake is centered at 193°E, 81°S, a flat area that does not exhibit any peculiar topographic characteristics but is surrounded by higher ground, except on its eastern side, where there is a depression.


title: Life on Mars

text: In May 2007, the "Spirit" rover disturbed a patch of ground with its inoperative wheel, uncovering an area 90% rich in silica. The feature is reminiscent of the effect of hot spring water or steam coming into contact with volcanic rocks. Scientists consider this as evidence of a past environment that may have been favorable for microbial life and theorize that one possible origin for the silica may have been produced by the interaction of soil with acid vapors produced by volcanic activity in the presence of water.


title: Life on Mars

text: Based on Earth analogs, hydrothermal systems on Mars would be highly attractive for their potential for preserving organic and inorganic biosignatures. For this reason, hydrothermal deposits are regarded as important targets in the exploration for fossil evidence of ancient Martian life.


title: Life on Mars

text: In May 2017, evidence of the earliest known life on land on Earth may have been found in 3.48-billion-year-old geyserite and other related mineral deposits (often found around hot springs and geysers) uncovered in the Pilbara Craton of Western Australia. These findings may be helpful in deciding where best to search for early signs of life on the planet Mars.


title: Life on Mars

text: Methane (CH) is chemically unstable in the current oxidizing atmosphere of Mars. It would quickly break down due to ultraviolet radiation from the Sun and chemical reactions with other gases. Therefore, a persistent presence of methane in the atmosphere may imply the existence of a source to continually replenish the gas.


title: Life on Mars

text: Trace amounts of methane, at the level of several parts per billion (ppb), were first reported in Mars's atmosphere by a team at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in 2003. Large differences in the abundances were measured between observations taken in 2003 and 2006, which suggested that the methane was locally concentrated and probably seasonal. On June 7, 2018, NASA announced it has detected a seasonal variation of methane levels on Mars.


title: Life on Mars

text: The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), launched in March 2016, began on April 21, 2018, to map the concentration and sources of methane in the atmosphere, as well as its decomposition products such as formaldehyde and methanol. As of May 2019, the Trace Gas Orbiter showed that the concentration of methane is under detectable level (< 0.05 ppbv).


title: Life on Mars

text: The principal candidates for the origin of Mars's methane include non-biological processes such as water-rock reactions, radiolysis of water, and pyrite formation, all of which produce H that could then generate methane and other hydrocarbons via Fischer–Tropsch synthesis with CO and CO. It has also been shown that methane could be produced by a process involving water, carbon dioxide, and the mineral olivine, which is known to be common on Mars. Although geologic sources of methane such as serpentinization are possible, the lack of current volcanism, hydrothermal activity or hotspots are not favorable for geologic methane.


title: Life on Mars

text: Living microorganisms, such as methanogens, are another possible source, but no evidence for the presence of such organisms has been found on Mars, until June 2019 as methane was detected by the "Curiosity" rover. Methanogens do not require oxygen or organic nutrients, are non-photosynthetic, use hydrogen as their energy source and carbon dioxide (CO) as their carbon source, so they could exist in subsurface environments on Mars. If microscopic Martian life is producing the methane, it probably resides far below the surface, where it is still warm enough for liquid water to exist.


title: Life on Mars

text: Since the 2003 discovery of methane in the atmosphere, some scientists have been designing models and "in vitro" experiments testing the growth of methanogenic bacteria on simulated Martian soil, where all four methanogen strains tested produced substantial levels of methane, even in the presence of 1.0wt% perchlorate salt.


title: Life on Mars

text: A team led by Levin suggested that both phenomena—methane production and degradation—could be accounted for by an ecology of methane-producing and methane-consuming microorganisms.


title: Life on Mars

text: Research at the University of Arkansas presented in June 2015 suggested that some methanogens could survive in Mars's low pressure. Rebecca Mickol found that in her laboratory, four species of methanogens survived low-pressure conditions that were similar to a subsurface liquid aquifer on Mars. The four species that she tested were "Methanothermobacter wolfeii", "Methanosarcina barkeri", "Methanobacterium formicicum", and "Methanococcus maripaludis". In June 2012, scientists reported that measuring the ratio of hydrogen and methane levels on Mars may help determine the likelihood of life on Mars. According to the scientists, "low H/CH ratios (less than approximately 40)" would "indicate that life is likely present and active". The observed ratios in the lower Martian atmosphere were "approximately 10 times" higher "suggesting that biological processes may not be responsible for the observed CH". The scientists suggested measuring the H and CH flux at the Martian surface for a more accurate assessment. Other scientists have recently reported methods of detecting hydrogen and methane in extraterrestrial atmospheres.


title: Life on Mars

text: Even if rover missions determine that microscopic Martian life is the seasonal source of the methane, the life forms probably reside far below the surface, outside of the rover's reach.


title: Life on Mars

text: In February 2005, it was announced that the Planetary Fourier Spectrometer (PFS) on the European Space Agency's Mars Express Orbiter had detected traces of formaldehyde in the atmosphere of Mars. Vittorio Formisano, the director of the PFS, has speculated that the formaldehyde could be the byproduct of the oxidation of methane and, according to him, would provide evidence that Mars is either extremely geologically active or harboring colonies of microbial life. NASA scientists consider the preliminary findings well worth a follow-up but have also rejected the claims of life.


title: Life on Mars

text: The 1970s Viking program placed two identical landers on the surface of Mars tasked to look for biosignatures of microbial life on the surface. Of the four experiments performed by each Viking lander, only the 'Labeled Release' (LR) experiment gave a positive result for metabolism, while the other three did not detect organic compounds. The LR was a specific experiment designed to test only a narrowly defined critical aspect of the theory concerning the possibility of life on Mars; therefore, the overall results were declared inconclusive. No Mars lander mission has found meaningful traces of biomolecules or biosignatures. The claim of extant microbial life on Mars is based on old data collected by the Viking landers, currently reinterpreted as sufficient evidence of life, mainly by Gilbert Levin, Joseph D. Miller, Navarro, Giorgio Bianciardi and Patricia Ann Straat, that the Viking LR experiments detected extant microbial life on Mars.


title: Life on Mars

text: Assessments published in December 2010 by Rafael Navarro-Gonzáles indicate that organic compounds "could have been present" in the soil analyzed by both Viking 1 and 2. The study determined that perchlorate—discovered in 2008 by Phoenix lander—can destroy organic compounds when heated, and produce chloromethane and dichloromethane as a byproduct, the identical chlorine compounds discovered by both Viking landers when they performed the same tests on Mars. Because perchlorate would have broken down any Martian organics, the question of whether or not Viking found organic compounds is still wide open.


title: Life on Mars

text: The Labeled Release evidence was not generally accepted initially, and, to this day lacks the consensus of the scientific community.


title: Life on Mars

text: As of 2018, there are 224 known Martian meteorites (some of which were found in several fragments). These are valuable because they are the only physical samples of Mars available to Earth-bound laboratories. Some researchers have argued that microscopic morphological features found in ALH84001 are biomorphs, however this interpretation has been highly controversial and is not supported by the majority of researchers in the field.


title: Life on Mars

text: Seven criteria have been established for the recognition of past life within terrestrial geologic samples. Those criteria are:


title: Life on Mars

text: For general acceptance of past life in a geologic sample, essentially most or all of these criteria must be met. All seven criteria have not yet been met for any of the Martian samples.


title: Life on Mars

text: In 1996, the Martian meteorite ALH84001, a specimen that is much older than the majority of Martian meteorites that have been recovered so far, received considerable attention when a group of NASA scientists led by David S. McKay reported microscopic features and geochemical anomalies that they considered to be best explained by the rock having hosted Martian bacteria in the distant past. Some of these features resembled terrestrial bacteria, aside from their being much smaller than any known form of life. Much controversy arose over this claim, and ultimately all of the evidence McKay's team cited as evidence of life was found to be explainable by non-biological processes. Although the scientific community has largely rejected the claim ALH 84001 contains evidence of ancient Martian life, the controversy associated with it is now seen as a historically significant moment in the development of exobiology.


title: Life on Mars

text: In 1998, a team from NASA's Johnson Space Center obtained a small sample for analysis. Researchers found preterrestrial aqueous alteration phases and objects of the size and shape consistent with Earthly fossilized nanobacteria.


title: Life on Mars

text: Analysis with gas chromatography and mass spectrometry (GC-MS) studied its high molecular weight polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in 2000, and NASA scientists concluded that as much as 75% of the organic compounds in Nakhla "may not be recent terrestrial contamination".


title: Life on Mars

text: This caused additional interest in this meteorite, so in 2006, NASA managed to obtain an additional and larger sample from the London Natural History Museum. On this second sample, a large dendritic carbon content was observed. When the results and evidence were published in 2006, some independent researchers claimed that the carbon deposits are of biologic origin. It was remarked that since carbon is the fourth most abundant element in the Universe, finding it in curious patterns is not indicative or suggestive of biological origin.


title: Life on Mars

text: The Shergotty meteorite, a Martian meteorite, fell on Earth on Shergotty, India on August 25, 1865, and was retrieved by witnesses almost immediately. It is composed mostly of pyroxene and thought to have undergone preterrestrial aqueous alteration for several centuries. Certain features in its interior suggest remnants of a biofilm and its associated microbial communities.


title: Life on Mars

text: Yamato 000593 is the second largest meteorite from Mars found on Earth. Studies suggest the Martian meteorite was formed about 1.3 billion years ago from a lava flow on Mars. An impact occurred on Mars about 12 million years ago and ejected the meteorite from the Martian surface into space. The meteorite landed on Earth in Antarctica about 50,000 years ago. The mass of the meteorite is and it has been found to contain evidence of past water movement. At a microscopic level, spheres are found in the meteorite that are rich in carbon compared to surrounding areas that lack such spheres. The carbon-rich spheres may have been formed by biotic activity according to NASA scientists.


title: Life on Mars

text: Organism–substrate interactions and their products are important biosignatures on Earth as they represent direct evidence of biological behaviour. It was the recovery of fossilized products of life-substrate interactions (ichnofossils) that has revealed biological activities in the early history of life on the Earth,e.g., Proterozoic burrows, Archean microborings and stromatolites. Two major ichnofossil-like structures have been reported from Mars, i.e. the stick-like structures from Vera Rubin Ridge and the microtunnels from Martian Meteorites.


title: Life on Mars

text: Observations at Vera Rubin Ridge by the Mars Space Laboratory rover "Curiosity" show millimetric, elongate structures preserved in sedimentary rocks deposited in fluvio-lacustrine environments within Gale Crater. Morphometric and topologic data are unique to the stick-like structures among Martian geological features and show that ichnofossils are among the closest morphological analogues of these unique features. Nevertheless, available data cannot fully disprove two major abiotic hypotheses, that are sedimentary cracking and evaporitic crystal growth as genetic processes for the structures.


title: Life on Mars

text: Microtunnels have been described from Martian meteorites. They consist of straight to curved microtunnels that may contain areas of enhanced carbon abundance. The morphology of the curved microtunnels is consistent with biogenic traces on Earth, including microbioerosion traces observed in basaltic glasses. Further studies are needed to confirm biogenicity.


title: Life on Mars

text: The seasonal frosting and defrosting of the southern ice cap results in the formation of spider-like radial channels carved on 1-meter thick ice by sunlight. Then, sublimed CO – and probably water – increase pressure in their interior producing geyser-like eruptions of cold fluids often mixed with dark basaltic sand or mud. This process is rapid, observed happening in the space of a few days, weeks or months, a growth rate rather unusual in geology – especially for Mars.


title: Life on Mars

text: A team of Hungarian scientists propose that the geysers' most visible features, dark dune spots and spider channels, may be colonies of photosynthetic Martian microorganisms, which over-winter beneath the ice cap, and as the sunlight returns to the pole during early spring, light penetrates the ice, the microorganisms photosynthesize and heat their immediate surroundings. A pocket of liquid water, which would normally evaporate instantly in the thin Martian atmosphere, is trapped around them by the overlying ice. As this ice layer thins, the microorganisms show through grey. When the layer has completely melted, the microorganisms rapidly desiccate and turn black, surrounded by a grey aureole. The Hungarian scientists believe that even a complex sublimation process is insufficient to explain the formation and evolution of the dark dune spots in space and time. Since their discovery, fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke promoted these formations as deserving of study from an astrobiological perspective.


title: Life on Mars

text: A multinational European team suggests that if liquid water is present in the spiders' channels during their annual defrost cycle, they might provide a niche where certain microscopic life forms could have retreated and adapted while sheltered from solar radiation. A British team also considers the possibility that organic matter, microbes, or even simple plants might co-exist with these inorganic formations, especially if the mechanism includes liquid water and a geothermal energy source. They also remark that the majority of geological structures may be accounted for without invoking any organic "life on Mars" hypothesis. It has been proposed to develop the Mars Geyser Hopper lander to study the geysers up close.


title: Life on Mars

text: Planetary protection of Mars aims to prevent biological contamination of the planet. A major goal is to preserve the planetary record of natural processes by preventing human-caused microbial introductions, also called forward contamination. There is abundant evidence as to what can happen when organisms from regions on Earth that have been isolated from one another for significant periods of time are introduced into each other's environment. Species that are constrained in one environment can thrive – often out of control – in another environment much to the detriment of the original species that were present. In some ways, this problem could be compounded if life forms from one planet were introduced into the totally alien ecology of another world.


title: Life on Mars

text: The prime concern of hardware contaminating Mars derives from incomplete spacecraft sterilization of some hardy terrestrial bacteria (extremophiles) despite best efforts. Hardware includes landers, crashed probes, end-of-mission disposal of hardware, and the hard landing of entry, descent, and landing systems. This has prompted research on survival rates of radiation-resistant microorganisms including the species "Deinococcus radiodurans" and genera "Brevundimonas", "Rhodococcus", and "Pseudomonas" under simulated Martian conditions. Results from one of these experimental irradiation experiments, combined with previous radiation modeling, indicate that "Brevundimonas" sp. MV.7 emplaced only 30 cm deep in Martian dust could survive the cosmic radiation for up to 100,000 years before suffering 10 population reduction. The diurnal Mars-like cycles in temperature and relative humidity affected the viability of "Deinococcus radiodurans" cells quite severely. In other simulations, "Deinococcus radiodurans" also failed to grow under low atmospheric pressure, under 0 °C, or in the absence of oxygen.


title: Life on Mars

text: Since the 1950s, researchers have used containers that simulate environmental conditions on Mars to determine the viability of a variety of lifeforms on Mars. Such devices, called "Mars jars" or "Mars simulation chambers", were first described and used in U.S. Air Force research in the 1950s by Hubertus Strughold, and popularized in civilian research by Joshua Lederberg and Carl Sagan.


title: Life on Mars

text: On April 26, 2012, scientists reported that an extremophile lichen survived and showed remarkable results on the adaptation capacity of photosynthetic activity within the simulation time of 34 days under Martian conditions in the Mars Simulation Laboratory (MSL) maintained by the German Aerospace Center (DLR). The ability to survive in an environment is not the same as the ability to thrive, reproduce, and evolve in that same environment, necessitating further study.


title: Life on Mars

text: Although numerous studies point to resistance to some of Mars conditions, they do so separately, and none has considered the full range of Martian surface conditions, including temperature, pressure, atmospheric composition, radiation, humidity, oxidizing regolith, and others, all at the same time and in combination. Laboratory simulations show that whenever multiple lethal factors are combined, the survival rates plummet quickly.


title: Life on Mars

text: Astrobiologists funded by NASA are researching the limits of microbial life in solutions with high salt concentrations at low temperature. Any body of liquid water under the polar ice caps or underground is likely to exist under high hydrostatic pressure and have a significant salt concentration. They know that the landing site of "Phoenix" lander was found to be regolith cemented with water ice and salts, and the soil samples likely contained magnesium sulfate, magnesium perchlorate, sodium perchlorate, potassium perchlorate, sodium chloride and calcium carbonate. Earth bacteria capable of growth and reproduction in the presence of highly salted solutions, called halophile or "salt-lover", were tested for survival using salts commonly found on Mars and at decreasing temperatures. The species tested include "Halomonas", "Marinococcus", "Nesterenkonia", and "Virgibacillus". Laboratory simulations show that whenever multiple Martian environmental factors are combined, the survival rates plummet quickly, however, halophile bacteria were grown in a lab in water solutions containing more than 25% of salts common on Mars, and starting in 2019, the experiments will incorporate exposure to low temperature, salts, and high pressure.


title: Life on Mars

text: Mars-1 was the first spacecraft launched to Mars in 1962, but communication was lost while en route to Mars. With Mars-2 and Mars-3 in 1971–1972, information was obtained on the nature of the surface rocks and altitude profiles of the surface density of the soil, its thermal conductivity, and thermal anomalies detected on the surface of Mars. The program found that its northern polar cap has a temperature below and that the water vapor content in the atmosphere of Mars is five thousand times less than on Earth. No signs of life were found.


title: Life on Mars

text: Mariner 4 probe performed the first successful flyby of the planet Mars, returning the first pictures of the Martian surface in 1965. The photographs showed an arid Mars without rivers, oceans, or any signs of life. Further, it revealed that the surface (at least the parts that it photographed) was covered in craters, indicating a lack of plate tectonics and weathering of any kind for the last 4 billion years. The probe also found that Mars has no global magnetic field that would protect the planet from potentially life-threatening cosmic rays. The probe was able to calculate the atmospheric pressure on the planet to be about 0.6 kPa (compared to Earth's 101.3 kPa), meaning that liquid water could not exist on the planet's surface. After Mariner 4, the search for life on Mars changed to a search for bacteria-like living organisms rather than for multicellular organisms, as the environment was clearly too harsh for these.


title: Life on Mars

text: Liquid water is necessary for known life and metabolism, so if water was present on Mars, the chances of it having supported life may have been determinant. The "Viking" orbiters found evidence of possible river valleys in many areas, erosion and, in the southern hemisphere, branched streams.


title: Life on Mars

text: The primary mission of the Viking probes of the mid-1970s was to carry out experiments designed to detect microorganisms in Martian soil because the favorable conditions for the evolution of multicellular organisms ceased some four billion years ago on Mars. The tests were formulated to look for microbial life similar to that found on Earth. Of the four experiments, only the Labeled Release (LR) experiment returned a positive result, showing increased CO production on first exposure of soil to water and nutrients. All scientists agree on two points from the Viking missions: that radiolabeled CO was evolved in the Labeled Release experiment, and that the GCMS detected no organic molecules. There are vastly different interpretations of what those results imply: A 2011 astrobiology textbook notes that the GCMS was the decisive factor due to which "For most of the Viking scientists, the final conclusion was that the "Viking" missions failed to detect life in the Martian soil."


title: Life on Mars

text: Norman Horowitz was the head of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory bioscience section for the Mariner and Viking missions from 1965 to 1976. Horowitz considered that the great versatility of the carbon atom makes it the element most likely to provide solutions, even exotic solutions, to the problems of survival of life on other planets. However, he also considered that the conditions found on Mars were incompatible with carbon based life.


title: Life on Mars

text: One of the designers of the Labeled Release experiment, Gilbert Levin, believes his results are a definitive diagnostic for life on Mars. Levin's interpretation is disputed by many scientists. A 2006 astrobiology textbook noted that "With unsterilized Terrestrial samples, though, the addition of more nutrients after the initial incubation would then produce still more radioactive gas as the dormant bacteria sprang into action to consume the new dose of food. This was not true of the Martian soil; on Mars, the second and third nutrient injections did not produce any further release of labeled gas." Other scientists argue that superoxides in the soil could have produced this effect without life being present. An almost general consensus discarded the Labeled Release data as evidence of life, because the gas chromatograph and mass spectrometer, designed to identify natural organic matter, did not detect organic molecules. More recently, high levels of organic chemicals, particularly chlorobenzene, were detected in powder drilled from one of the rocks, named "Cumberland", analyzed by the "Curiosity" rover. The results of the Viking mission concerning life are considered by the general expert community as inconclusive.


title: Life on Mars

text: In 2007, during a Seminar of the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution (Washington, D.C., US), Gilbert Levin's investigation was assessed once more. Levin still maintains that his original data were correct, as the positive and negative control experiments were in order. Moreover, Levin's team, on April 12, 2012, reported a statistical speculation, based on old data—reinterpreted mathematically through cluster analysis—of the Labeled Release experiments, that may suggest evidence of "extant microbial life on Mars". Critics counter that the method has not yet been proven effective for differentiating between biological and non-biological processes on Earth so it is premature to draw any conclusions.


title: Life on Mars

text: A research team from the National Autonomous University of Mexico headed by Rafael Navarro-González concluded that the GCMS equipment (TV-GC-MS) used by the Viking program to search for organic molecules, may not be sensitive enough to detect low levels of organics. Klaus Biemann, the principal investigator of the GCMS experiment on "Viking" wrote a rebuttal. Because of the simplicity of sample handling, TV–GC–MS is still considered the standard method for organic detection on future Mars missions, so Navarro-González suggests that the design of future organic instruments for Mars should include other methods of detection.


title: Life on Mars

text: After the discovery of perchlorates on Mars by the Phoenix lander, practically the same team of Navarro-González published a paper arguing that the Viking GCMS results were compromised by the presence of perchlorates. A 2011 astrobiology textbook notes that "while perchlorate is too poor an oxidizer to reproduce the LR results (under the conditions of that experiment perchlorate does not oxidize organics), it does oxidize, and thus destroy, organics at the higher temperatures used in the Viking GCMS experiment." Biemann has written a commentary critical of this Navarro-González paper as well, to which the latter have replied; the exchange was published in December 2011.


title: Life on Mars

text: The "Phoenix" mission landed a robotic spacecraft in the polar region of Mars on May 25, 2008, and it operated until November 10, 2008. One of the mission's two primary objectives was to search for a "habitable zone" in the Martian regolith where microbial life could exist, the other main goal being to study the geological history of water on Mars. The lander has a 2.5 meter robotic arm that was capable of digging shallow trenches in the regolith. There was an electrochemistry experiment which analysed the ions in the regolith and the amount and type of antioxidants on Mars. The Viking program data indicate that oxidants on Mars may vary with latitude, noting that "Viking 2" saw fewer oxidants than "Viking 1" in its more northerly position. "Phoenix" landed further north still.


title: Life on Mars

text: "Phoenix"s preliminary data revealed that Mars soil contains perchlorate, and thus may not be as life-friendly as thought earlier. The pH and salinity level were viewed as benign from the standpoint of biology. The analysers also indicated the presence of bound water and CO. A recent analysis of Martian meteorite EETA79001 found 0.6 ppm ClO, 1.4 ppm ClO, and 16 ppm NO, most likely of Martian origin. The ClO suggests presence of other highly oxidizing oxychlorines such as ClO or ClO, produced both by UV oxidation of Cl and X-ray radiolysis of ClO. Thus only highly refractory and/or well-protected (sub-surface) organics are likely to survive. In addition, recent analysis of the "Phoenix" WCL showed that the Ca(ClO) in the "Phoenix" soil has not interacted with liquid water of any form, perhaps for as long as 600 Myr. If it had, the highly soluble Ca(ClO) in contact with liquid water would have formed only CaSO. This suggests a severely arid environment, with minimal or no liquid water interaction.


title: Life on Mars

text: The Mars Science Laboratory mission is a NASA project that launched on November 26, 2011, the "Curiosity" rover, a nuclear-powered robotic vehicle, bearing instruments designed to assess past and present habitability conditions on Mars. The "Curiosity" rover landed on Mars on Aeolis Palus in Gale Crater, near Aeolis Mons (a.k.a. Mount Sharp), on August 6, 2012.


title: Life on Mars

text: On December 16, 2014, NASA reported the "Curiosity" rover detected a "tenfold spike", likely localized, in the amount of methane in the Martian atmosphere. Sample measurements taken "a dozen times over 20 months" showed increases in late 2013 and early 2014, averaging "7 parts of methane per billion in the atmosphere". Before and after that, readings averaged around one-tenth that level. In addition, low levels of chlorobenzene (), were detected in powder drilled from one of the rocks, named "Cumberland", analyzed by the "Curiosity" rover.


title: Life on Mars

text: The "Mars 2020" rover is a Mars planetary rover mission by NASA, launched on 30 July 2020. It is intended to investigate an astrobiologically relevant ancient environment on Mars, investigate its surface geological processes and history, including the assessment of its past habitability and potential for preservation of biosignatures within accessible geological materials.


title: Life on Mars

text: Some of the main reasons for colonizing Mars include economic interests, long-term scientific research best carried out by humans as opposed to robotic probes, and sheer curiosity. Surface conditions and the presence of water on Mars make it arguably the most hospitable of the planets in the Solar System, other than Earth. Human colonization of Mars would require "in situ" resource utilization (ISRU); A NASA report states that "applicable frontier technologies include robotics, machine intelligence, nanotechnology, synthetic biology, 3-D printing/additive manufacturing, and autonomy. These technologies combined with the vast natural resources should enable, pre- and post-human arrival ISRU to greatly increase reliability and safety and reduce cost for human colonization of Mars."


title: Jackie Stewart

text: Sir John Young Stewart (born 11 June 1939), known as Jackie Stewart, is a British former Formula One racing driver from Scotland. Nicknamed the "Flying Scot", he competed in Formula One between 1965 and 1973, winning three World Drivers' Championships and twice finishing as runner-up over those nine seasons.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: Outside of Formula One, he narrowly missed out on a win at his first attempt at the Indianapolis 500 in 1966, and competed in the Can-Am series in 1970 and 1971. Between 1997 and 1999, in partnership with his son, Paul, he was team principal of the Stewart Grand Prix Formula One racing team.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: After retiring from racing, Stewart was an ABC network television sports commentator for both auto racing, covering the Indianapolis 500 for over a decade, and for several summer Olympics covering many events. Stewart also served as a television commercial spokesman for both the Ford Motor Company and Heineken beer.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: Stewart was also instrumental in improving the safety of motor racing, campaigning for better medical facilities and track improvements at motor racing circuits.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: After John Surtees' death in 2017, he is the last surviving Formula One World Champion from the 1960s. He is also the oldest living Formula One winner after Tony Brooks' death on 3 May 2022.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: Stewart was born in Milton, Dunbartonshire, Scotland, a village fifteen miles west of Glasgow. Stewart's family were Austin, and later Jaguar, car dealers and had built up a successful business. His father had been an amateur motorcycle racer, and his brother Jimmy was a racing driver with a local reputation who drove for Ecurie Ecosse and competed in the 1953 British Grand Prix at Silverstone.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: Jackie attended Hartfield primary school in the nearby town of Dumbarton, and moved to Dumbarton Academy at the age of 12. He experienced learning difficulties owing to undiagnosed dyslexia, and due to the condition not being understood or even widely known at the time, he was regularly berated and humiliated by teachers and peers alike for being "dumb" and "thick". Stewart was unable to continue his secondary education past the age of 16, and began working in his father's garage as an apprentice mechanic. He was not actually diagnosed with dyslexia until 1980, when his oldest son Mark was diagnosed with the condition. On learning that dyslexia can be genetically passed on, and seeing very similar symptoms with his son that he had experienced himself as a child, Stewart asked if he could be tested, and was diagnosed with the disorder, by which time he was 41 years old. He has said: "When you've got dyslexia and you find something you're good at, you put more into it than anyone else; you can't think the way of the clever folk, so you're always thinking out of the box."


title: Jackie Stewart

text: At the age of 13 he had won a clay pigeon shooting competition and then went on to become a prize-winning member of the Scottish shooting team, competing in the United Kingdom and abroad. He won the British, Irish, Welsh and Scottish skeet shooting championships and twice won the "Coupe de Nations" European championship. He competed for a place in the British trap shooting team for the 1960 Summer Olympics, but finished third behind Joseph Wheater and Brett Huthart.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: Stewart's first car was a light green Austin A30 with "real leather [covered] seats" which he purchased shortly before his seventeenth birthday for £375, a detail he was able to recall for an interviewer sixty years later. He had saved up the purchase price from tips received from his job at the family garage.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: He took up an offer from Barry Filer, a customer of the family business, to test in a number of his cars at Oulton Park. For 1961, Filer provided a Marcos, in which Stewart scored four wins, and competed once in Filer's Aston DB4GT. In 1962, to help decide if he was ready to become a professional driver, he tested a Jaguar E-type at Oulton Park, matching Roy Salvadori's times in a similar car the year before. He won two races, his first in England, in the E-type, and David Murray of Ecurie Ecosse offered him a ride in the Tojeiro EE Mk2, and their Cooper T49, in which he won at Goodwood. For 1963, he earned fourteen wins, a second, and two-thirds, with six retirements.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: In 1964, he again signed with Ecurie Ecosse. Ken Tyrrell, then running the Formula Junior team for the Cooper Car Company, heard of the young Scotsman from Goodwood's track manager and called up Jimmy Stewart to see if his younger brother was interested in a tryout. Jackie came down for the test at Goodwood, taking over a new, and very competitive, Formula Three T72-BMC which Bruce McLaren was testing. Soon Stewart was bettering McLaren's times, causing McLaren to return to the track for some quicker laps. Again, Stewart was quicker, and Tyrrell offered Stewart a spot on the team.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: In 1964 he drove in Formula Three for Tyrrell. His debut, in the wet at Snetterton on 15 March, was dominant; he took a 25-second lead in just two laps before coasting home to a win by 44 seconds. Within days, he was offered a Formula One ride with Cooper, but declined, preferring to gain experience under Tyrrell; he failed to win just two races (one to clutch failure, one to a spin) in becoming F3 champion.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: After running John Coombs' E-type and practising in a Ferrari at Le Mans, he took a trial in an F1 Lotus 33-Climax, in which he impressed Colin Chapman and Jim Clark. Stewart again refused a ride in F1, but went instead to the Lotus Formula Two team. In his F2 debut, he was second at the difficult Circuit Clermont-Ferrand in a Lotus 32-Cosworth.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: While he signed with BRM alongside Graham Hill in 1965, a contract which netted him £4,000, his first race in an F1 car was for Lotus, as stand-in for an injured Jim Clark, at the non-championship Rand Grand Prix in December 1964; after qualifying in pole position the Lotus broke in the first heat, but he won the second and claimed fastest lap. On his World Championship F1 debut in South Africa, he finished sixth. His first major competition victory came in the BRDC International Trophy in the late spring, and before the end of the year he won his first World Championship race at Monza, fighting wheel-to-wheel with teammate Hill's P261. Stewart finished his rookie season with a win, three seconds, a third, a fifth, and a sixth, and third place in the World Drivers' Championship. He also piloted Tyrrell's unsuccessful F2 Cooper T75-BRM, and drove the Rover Company's revolutionary turbine car at the 24 Hours of Le Mans alongside Graham Hill.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: At the start of the 1966 season, Stewart won the Tasman Series from his BRM teammate Graham Hill in two-litre BRMs and also raced closely with his great rival and friend Jim Clark who was somewhat disadvantaged by an unreliable Lotus 39 which was let down by its old 2.5-litre Climax engine.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: In F1, after his promising start the previous year, 1966 was a poor year for Stewart; the 3-litre H16 BRMs were unreliable, although Stewart did win the Monaco Grand Prix in a 2-litre engined car. The most significant event in that year was his accident at the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps, which sparked his campaign to improve safety in F1 and caused him to miss the French Grand Prix at Reims.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: Stewart had some success in other forms of racing during the year, winning the 1966 Rothmans 12 Hour International Sports Car Race and almost winning the Indianapolis 500 on his first attempt, in John Mecom's Lola T90-Ford, only to be denied by a broken scavenge pump while leading by over a lap with eight laps to go. However, Stewart's performance, having had the race fully in hand, sidelined only by mechanical failure, won him Rookie of the Year honours despite the winner, Graham Hill, also being an Indianapolis rookie. Stewart appeared at 24 Hours of Le Mans test day on 3 April 1966 driving a Ford GT40 Mk II version of Holman & Moody and the Ford GT40 owned by Alan Mann Racing.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: BRM's fortunes did not improve in 1967, despite closely contesting the Tasman Series with Jim Clark who probably raced closer and harder with him than at any time in their careers. While Clark usually won, Stewart won a victory in the New Zealand Grand Prix with Clark attempting to run him down in the last laps with bodywork flying off his Lotus. In F1 the BRMs were still struggling with reliability problems and Stewart came no higher than second, at Spa, while having to drive one-handed while holding the car in gear with the other. In F2 he won events at Karlskoga, Enna, Oulton Park, and Albi in a Tyrrell-entered Matra MS5 or MS7. He also placed 2nd driving a works-entered Ferrari driving with Chris Amon at the BOAC 6 Hours at Brands Hatch, the 10th round of World Sportscar Championship at the time. Stewart also attempted to run the 1967 National 500 NASCAR race but did not qualify for the race.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: For 1968 in Formula One, he switched to Tyrrell's Matra International team, where he drove a Matra MS10-Cosworth. After a promising start in South Africa with the Matra MS9 development mule he missed Jarama and Monaco due to an F2 injury at Jarama and his first win of the season was in heavy rain at Zandvoort. Another win in rain and fog at the Nürburgring followed, where he won by a margin of four minutes. He also won at Watkins Glen but his car failed at Mexico City, and so he lost the drivers' title to Hill.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: In 1969, driving the Matra MS80-Cosworth, Stewart had a number of races where he completely dominated the opposition, such as winning by over two laps at Montjuïc, a minute in front at Clemont-Ferrand and by more than a lap at Silverstone. With additional wins at Kyalami, Zandvoort, and Monza, Stewart became world champion. Until 2005 he was the only driver to have won the championship in a car built by a French constructor and remains the only driver to win the world championship in a car built in France as well as in a car entered by a privateer team. Also that year, Stewart led at least one lap of every World Championship Grand Prix, and remains the only driver to achieve this feat.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: For 1970, Matra insisted on using their own V12 engines, while Tyrrell and Stewart wanted to continue with the Cosworth and maintain their connection to Ford, which conflicted with Matra's recent connections to Chrysler. Tyrrell decided to build his own car and in the interim bought a chassis from March Engineering; Stewart took the March 701-Cosworth to wins at the "Daily Mail" Race of Champions and Jarama, but development on the car stalled and it was soon overcome by the Lotus team's new 72. The new Tyrrell 001-Cosworth, appeared in August and suffered problems but showed promise. Tyrrell continued to be sponsored by French fuel company Elf, and Stewart raced in a car painted French Racing Blue for many years. Stewart also continued to race sporadically in Formula Two, winning at Crystal Palace and placing at Thruxton. A projected Le Mans appearance, to co-drive the 4.5 litre Porsche 917K with Steve McQueen, did not come off, due to McQueen's inability to get insurance. He also had a one-off race in Can-Am, in the revolutionary Chaparral 2J. Stewart qualified third, in what was the car's first outing, but brake failure ended his race.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: Stewart went on to win the Formula One world championship in 1971 using the Tyrrell 003-Cosworth, winning Spain, Monaco, France, Britain, Germany, and Canada. He also did a full season in Can-Am, driving a Carl Haas sponsored Lola T260-Chevrolet. During the 1971 season, Stewart was the only driver able to challenge the McLarens driven by Denny Hulme and Peter Revson. Stewart won two races, at Mont Tremblant and Mid Ohio, and finished 3rd in the championship.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: The stress of racing year round and on several continents eventually caused medical problems for Stewart. He won the 1971 world championship despite having mononucleosis and crossing the Atlantic Ocean 186 times due to media commitments in the United States. During the 1972 Grand Prix season he missed the Belgian Grand Prix at Nivelles due to gastritis, and had to cancel plans to drive a Can-Am McLaren, but won the Argentine, French, U.S. and Canadian Grands Prix, to come second to Emerson Fittipaldi in the drivers' standings. Stewart also competed in a Ford Capri RS2600 in the European Touring Car Championship, with F1 teammate François Cevert and other F1 pilots, at a time where the competition between Ford and BMW was at a height. Their best result was at the 6 Hours of Paul Ricard, finishing second. In 1972 Stewart also received the OBE.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: Entering the 1973 season, Stewart had decided to retire. He nevertheless won at South Africa, Belgium, Monaco and the Netherlands. His last and then record-setting 27th victory came at the Nürburgring with a 1–2 for Tyrrell. "Nothing gave me more satisfaction than to win at the Nürburgring and yet I was always afraid." Stewart later said. "When I left home for the German Grand Prix I always used to pause at the end of the driveway and take a long look back. I was never sure I'd come home again." After the fatal crash of his teammate François Cevert in practice for the 1973 United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen, Stewart retired one race earlier than intended and missed what would have been his 100th Grand Prix. Stewart had already won the Drivers' Championship at the Italian Grand Prix two races previously; this was a race where Stewart had to come into the pits to change a flat tyre, and drove from 20th to finish 4th.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: Stewart held the record for most wins by a Formula One driver (27) for 14 years until Alain Prost won the 1987 Portuguese Grand Prix, and the record for most wins by a British Formula One driver for 19 years until Nigel Mansell won the 1992 British Grand Prix. In his commentary work for race broadcaster Channel 9 during qualifying for the 1988 Australian Grand Prix, Stewart said that he had been asked numerous times if he was unhappy about losing his record to Prost, going on to say that he was happy that his record had been taken by someone of the calibre of Prost, as he believed him to be the best driver in Formula One.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: At Spa-Francorchamps in 1966, Stewart ran off the track while driving at in heavy rain, and crashed into a telephone pole and a shed before coming to rest in a farmer's outbuilding. His steering column pinned his leg, while ruptured fuel tanks emptied their contents into the cockpit. There were no track crews to extricate him, nor were proper tools available. Stewart was rescued by fellow drivers Graham Hill and Bob Bondurant who had also crashed nearby. There were no doctors or medical facilities at the track, and Stewart was put in the bed of a pickup truck, remaining there until an ambulance arrived. He was first taken to the track's first aid centre, where he waited on a stretcher, which was placed on a floor strewn with cigarette ends and other rubbish. Finally, another ambulance crew picked him up, but the ambulance driver got lost driving to a hospital in Liège. Ultimately, a private jet flew Stewart back to the UK for treatment.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: After his crash at Spa, Stewart became an outspoken advocate for auto racing safety. Later, he explained, "If I have any legacy to leave the sport I hope it will be seen to be an area of safety because when I arrived in Grand Prix racing so-called precautions and safety measures were diabolical."


title: Jackie Stewart

text: Stewart campaigned with Louis Stanley (BRM team boss) for improved emergency services and better safety barriers around race tracks. "We were racing at circuits where there were no crash barriers in front of the pits, and fuel was lying about in churns in the pit lane. A car could easily crash into the pits at any time. It was ridiculous." As a stop-gap measure, Stewart hired a private doctor to be at all his races, and taped a spanner to the steering shaft of his BRM in case it would be needed again. Stewart pressed for mandatory seat belt usage and full-face helmets for drivers, which have become unthinkable omissions for modern races. Likewise, he pressed track owners to modernize their tracks, including organizing driver boycotts of races at Spa-Francorchamps in 1969, the Nürburgring in 1970 being joined by his close friend Jochen Rindt, and Zandvoort in 1972 until barriers, run-off areas, fire crews, and medical facilities were improved.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: Some drivers and press members believed the safety improvements for which Stewart advocated detracted from the sport, while track owners and race organizers baulked at the extra costs. "I would have been a much more popular World Champion if I had always said what people wanted to hear. I might have been dead, but definitely more popular," Stewart later said.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: Subsequently, he became a consultant for Ford Motor Company while continuing to be a spokesman for safer cars and circuits in Formula One.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: During the period 1971 to 1986, Stewart covered F1 races, NASCAR races and Indianapolis 500 as a color commentator, and also functioned as host for the latter. Jackie was a play-by-play announcer for the Luge at the 1976 Winter Olympics and the Equestrian at the 1976 Summer Olympics (partnered with Chris Schenkel) on "ABC's Wide World of Sports". He was noted for his insightful analysis, Scottish accent, and rapid delivery, which once caused ABC's lead sports commentator Jim McKay to remark that Stewart spoke almost as fast as he drove. In his book "Winning Is Not Enough", Stewart revealed that he used notes to read from to do a TV broadcast as he could not read from an autocue due to his dyslexia. He also revealed there was tension between him and ABC Sports producer Roone Arledge as Stewart was doing commercials for Ford Motor Company as well and several of the commercials aired on "Wide World of Sports" which he was a regular commentator there and that led him to leaving ABC in 1986.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: Later, Stewart covered CART IndyCar races starting at Long Beach in 1987 on NBC SportsWorld, along with Paul Page. He returned in 1988, along with Charlie Jones. Stewart only covered road course and street races in his brief time at NBC. He did not return in 1989 and was replaced by Johnny Rutherford and Tom Sneva.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: Stewart occasionally appeared with Murray Walker as a co-commentator on the BBC's F1 coverage, including the British Grands Prix of 1979 and 1993.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: In 1997 Stewart returned to Formula One, with Stewart Grand Prix, as a team owner in partnership with his son, Paul. The team was a development of the previous Paul Stewart Racing team that had previously competed in lower formulae. As the works Ford team, their first race was the 1997 Australian Grand Prix. The only success of their first year came at the rain-affected Monaco Grand Prix where Rubens Barrichello finished second. The following year, 1998, was less competitive, with no podiums and few points.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: However, after Ford acquired Cosworth in July 1998, the team risked designing and building a new engine for 1999. The SF3 was consistently competitive throughout the season. The team won one race at the European Grand Prix at the Nürburgring with Johnny Herbert, while Barrichello took three 3rd places, pole in France, and briefly led his home race at Interlagos. The team was later bought by Ford and became Jaguar Racing in 2000 (which subsequently became Red Bull Racing in 2005).


title: Jackie Stewart

text: Stewart is also the head sports consultant/patron for the Royal Bank of Scotland. In March 2009, he waived his fee for the year in response to the bank losing £24bn in 2008.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: Stewart received "Sports Illustrated" magazine's 1973 "Sportsman of the Year" award, the only auto racer to have won the title. In the same year he also won BBC Television's "Sports Personality of the Year" award, and was named as ABC's Wide World of Sports Athlete of the Year, which he was shared with American pro football player O. J. Simpson. In 1990, he was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame. In 1996, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh. In 1998 Stewart received an honorary doctorate from Cranfield University where he later served as chairman of the steering committee for the MSc Motorsport Engineering and Management.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: He was a subject of the television programme "This Is Your Life" in January 1970 where he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at Thames Television's Euston Road Studios.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: In the 1971 Birthday Honours Stewart was created an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). In 2001 he received a knighthood. In both cases the honour was for services to motor racing.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: In 2003 the World Forum on the Future of Sport Shooting Activities presented Stewart the Sport Shooting Ambassador Award. The Award goes to an outstanding individual whose efforts have promoted the shooting sports internationally.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: On 27 November 2008, Stewart was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science (D.Sc.) degree from the University of St Andrews.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: On 26 June 2009, Stewart was awarded the Freedom of West Dunbartonshire at a special ceremony in his hometown of Dumbarton.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: On 28 January 2012, Stewart gave the starting command for the 50th Anniversary of the Rolex 24 at Daytona. He assumed the role after previously announced Grand Marshal A. J. Foyt was forced to cancel his visit due to complications from his recent knee surgery.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: In 2020, the British magazine "The Economist" ranked champion drivers by the relative importance of car quality to driver skill. According to this ranking, Stewart was the 4th best driver of all time.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: Stewart appears in the 1966 John Frankenheimer movie "Grand Prix" doing all the driving scenes for actor Brian Bedford, who played Scott Stoddard, as Bedford did not know how to drive. Stewart was the subject in the 1972 Roman Polanski-produced film "Weekend of a Champion", in which Polanski shadows him throughout a race weekend at the 1971 Monaco Grand Prix.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: He appeared in an anachronistic cameo in a 1977 episode of "Lupin III" as a competitor in the 1977 Monaco Grand Prix. George Harrison, a good friend of Stewart's, released a single, "Faster", in 1979, as a tribute to Stewart, Niki Lauda, Ronnie Peterson and fellow Formula One race car drivers.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: He and his son Mark appeared together in a Vectrex commercial in the 1980s as a spokesman for the General Consumer Electronics (GCE)/Milton Bradley Vectrex home video game. Stewart also wrote the foreword for the book "The Centenary of the Car 1885–1985" by Andrew Whyte in 1984. He participated in Prince Edward's 1987 charity television special, "The Grand Knockout Tournament".


title: Jackie Stewart

text: Stewart also featured in a special presentation video of the then all new Ford Mondeo in 1993, the video was given away free on the front cover of "What Car?" magazine in 1993. He was featured in the video to the 2000 song "Supreme" by British singer, Robbie Williams. Stewart appeared in several UPS commercials in 2002 and 2003 as a consultant for Dale Jarrett to convince Jarrett to "race the Big Brown truck". He also once appeared on the UK motoring program "Top Gear" as a driving instructor for host James May.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: He is also interviewed in some depth in Martin Scorsese's 2011 documentary biography of Harrison, "". 2018 saw the 50th anniversary of the relationship between Stewart and luxury watch brand Rolex.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: In 2018, he Stewart appeared in US commercials for Heineken beer, in which he refused an offered beer saying "I'm still driving" before driving away in a Jaguar F-Type.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: Stewart's helmet was white, with the red, green, blue, white and yellow Royal Stewart tartan surrounding the top.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: Stewart has been married to his childhood sweetheart Helen McGregor since 1962, and they have two sons: Paul and Mark. Paul is a former racing driver, who later ran Paul Stewart Racing with his father, before selling it in 1999. Mark is a film and television producer. The couple currently live in the Buckinghamshire village of Ellesborough, on a 140-acre farm that was the hunting grounds of the nearby Prime Minister's country house, Chequers. Between 1969 and 1997 the couple lived in Begnins, near Lake Geneva in Switzerland (and later sold his house to Phil Collins).


title: Jackie Stewart

text: Stewart dictated his autobiography titled "Winning Is Not Enough", due to his dyslexia. In a 2009 interview, and in the book, he discusses his close relationship with his older brother Jimmy, who was also a successful racing driver in his youth but had a long struggle with alcoholism. Jimmy died in 2008.


title: Jackie Stewart

text: In 2018, he set up the charity Race Against Dementia. In 2016, Helen McGregor Stewart was diagnosed at the Mayo Clinic with frontotemporal dementia. , she has limited short-term memory and impaired mobility, and requires round-the-clock care support. Stewart believes that the application of Formula 1's technology and out of the box thinking could bring about earlier solutions to society coping with dementia.


title: Rorschach (character)

text: Rorschach (Walter Joseph Kovacs) is a fictional antihero in the graphic novel limited series "Watchmen", published by DC Comics in 1986. Rorschach was created by writer Alan Moore with artist Dave Gibbons, but as with most of the main characters in the series, he was an analogue for a Charlton Comics character, in this case Steve Ditko's the Question. Moore also modeled Rorschach on Mr. A, another Steve Ditko creation on whom the Question was originally based.


title: Rorschach (character)

text: While "Watchmen" has an ensemble cast, many consider Rorschach to be the protagonist as he drives most of the plot forward and serves as the series' narrator. In the beginning of the story, he is introduced as the only masked vigilante to remain active on his own terms and initiative, a criminal outlaw as opposed to other former superheroes now covertly employed by the U.S. government. A ruthless crime-fighter, Rorschach believes in moral absolutism—good and evil as pure ends, with no shades of gray—which compels him to seek to punish any evidence of evil at all costs. His mask displays a constantly morphing inkblot based on the ambiguous designs used in Rorschach inkblot tests, also his namesake, with the mask's black and white coloring consistent with his sense and view of morality.


title: Rorschach (character)

text: The original character was positively received, with multiple references in other comic titles and appearances in other media. He reappears in the "Before Watchmen" comic book prequel in his own miniseries. Rorschach made his live-action debut in the 2009 film "Watchmen", played by Jackie Earle Haley, who also voices him in the video game "".


title: Rorschach (character)

text: A successor to the Rorschach mantle, named Reggie Long, debuted in the sequel miniseries "Doomsday Clock", which connects the "Watchmen" universe with the mainstream DC Universe.


title: Rorschach (character)

text: As with the rest of the main characters of "Watchmen", Alan Moore based Rorschach on Charlton Comics characters, using them as a "starting point". The characters Rorschach was specifically based on were the Question (a Charlton character) and Mr. A, two comic book characters created by Steve Ditko.


title: Rorschach (character)

text: Ditko, who was inspired by the writings of Ayn Rand's personal philosophy of Objectivism, created both the Question and Mr. A as followers of the ideology. Regarding Rand's philosophy, Moore said he personally found it "laughable". In spite of this, Moore had a healthy respect for Ditko despite having different views politically. Moore recalled that Ditko's very right-wing agenda was quite interesting to him at the time, and that "probably led to me portraying Rorschach as an extremely right-wing character".


title: Rorschach (character)

text: In trying to create Rorschach, Moore said he was trying to "come up with this quintessential Steve Ditko character—someone who's got a funny name, whose surname begins with a 'K,' who's got an oddly designed mask". On how he decided Rorschach's name, Moore recalls:


title: Rorschach (character)

text: The Question was used as the prototype for creating Rorschach, while Mr. A, being a far more radical right-wing character than the mainstream-suited Question, served as the main inspiration for Rorschach's right-wing views as well as his black-and-white morality. Moore came to view Rorschach as a logical extension of both Mr. A and the Question. On the other hand, upon being asked whether he had seen "Watchmen", Ditko himself described Rorschach as being "like Mister A, except Rorschach is insane."


title: Rorschach (character)

text: Moore stated that Rorschach was created as a way of exploring what an archetypical Batman-type character—a driven, vengeance-fueled vigilante—would be like in the real world. He concluded that the short answer was "a nutcase". Moore also stated that the tone of Rorschach's diary was inspired by the Son of Sam letters David Berkowitz sent to the newspapers, and that his speech patterns were based on Herbie the Fat Fury.