QUESTION:
What are the chances of finding traces of ancient life in Mars'
surface? Can Pathfinder consolidate the information provided by the
study of the meteor that fell in the Antartic surface?

ANSWER from Bruce Jakosky on July 2, 1997:
The best web site for finding out about the Pathfinder mission is
through the JPL site.  This is at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/

Unfortunately, the Pathfinder mission is not set up to look for
evidence of life or for the geochemistry that might be relevant to
life.  It's goals are to demonstrate the ability to do a low-cost
Mars lander mission, to test out using a rover on the surface, and
to explore the geology in the vicinity of the landing site.  These
will pave the way for future missions, in which we hope to gather
rocks from the surface and bring them back to the Earth. The sites
that are visited in these future missions will, we hope, be those
that have the best chances for finding evidence of present or past
life.