Science · Research & investigation
David S. McKay
Meteorite researcher and biosignature-study coauthor
Photograph · Image credit
Who they are
David S. McKay coauthored the 1996 paper proposing possible evidence of past biological activity in the Martian meteorite ALH84001. The argument drew on several features of the specimen and acknowledged nonbiological alternatives. Its prominence and later reassessment make the episode a case study in the difficulty of interpreting possible signs of extraterrestrial life.
His paper begins the ALH84001 debate represented in the timeline; the claimed biological interpretation is not treated as a confirmed discovery.
Selected contributions
- Coauthored the 1996 study proposing a possible biological interpretation of ALH84001 features.Source ↗
Selected works
Academic paper · 1996 · Peer-reviewed article; abstract inspected
Search for past life on Mars: possible relic biogenic activity in Martian meteorite ALH84001
McKay and colleagues propose that several features of ALH84001 might record ancient Martian biology while considering nonbiological alternatives. The paper is central to the later debate over how to interpret possible biosignatures.
Reading scope & citation
Reused original author abstract and bibliographic metadata; complete 1996 article not read.
In the timeline
Biography sources & portrait credit
- Search for past life on Mars: possible relic biogenic activity in Martian meteorite ALH84001 ↗NASA Technical Reports Server / McKay and coauthors
Portrait credit
NASA. Public domain (U.S. federal government work). Via Wikimedia Commons.
Photograph. Cropped to 4:5, resized to 320 × 400 and converted to WebP.
Image source & identification ↗ · Public domain (U.S. federal government work) ↗
