A Western Washington University researcher has helped mankind take a giant leap toward learning if we are alone in the universe.

WWU’s Melissa Rice, an assistant professor who teaches planetary geology, is one of more than 50 authors of a report published last week in the scientific journal Nature describing how they found a rock that might show evidence of a microbe eating and digesting food — in this case, iron oxide.

It’s a sign that primitive life forms may have flourished millions of years ago on the Red Planet, Rice told The Herald in a phone interview.

“Finding life on Mars would make it much more likely that life is a common occurrence throughout the universe. If it’s not life — why would a planet that is so similar to Earth not have life? That could mean that life is extremely

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