Crap on Mars?

martian queen with big boobs by ~pegi

Hat tip to Wagga for this find:
HAVE they found poo on the Red Planet?

Space websites around the world are abuzz with speculation about what NASA's latest Mars probe may have found.

The excitement has been triggered by a report in the journal Aviation Week that the space agency alerted the White House to "major new Phoenix lander discoveries concerning the 'potential for life' ".

Jon Clarke, a geologist with Mars Society Australia, a group dedicated to Martian exploration, said the report had triggered a frenzy of interest. "Chat groups are all speculating about what it is," Dr Clarke said. "We have had emails flying backwards and forwards. Something is certainly in the breeze."

The magazine reports that the discovery was made by a Phoenix experiment package called the Microscopy, Electrochemistry and Conductivity Analyser, or MECA, which is designed to mix Martian soil with water brought from Earth.

In June NASA revealed the instrument had found Martian soil was not toxic, as had been thought, and could be used to grow crops such as asparagus.

Asked to speculate yesterday on what it may have now found, Dr Clarke said the instrument was designed, among other things, to spot dissolved ammonium and nitrate salts.

"On Earth, if you have a lot of ammonium and nitrate it usually means there is organic activity. We excrete it as waste and other organisms use it."
More here.