The Associated Press reports that two NASA Viking space probes visiting Mars in 1976-77 may have come across alien microbes and killed them by drowning and overheating them, according to a paper released at an American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle. It was accidental, since the probes were looking for Earth-like life, not the hydrogen peroxide-based life that could have evolved on Mars in the Red Planet’s cold, dry conditions. A NASA official told AP the agency is revising its definition of “life.”
A-10 Thunderbolt II attack planes in the Middle East are flying with fresh modifications as the Air Force looks to make the plane more versatile amid America’s ongoing blockade of Iranian ports and a tenuous ceasefire in the U.S. air war against Iran.