I'm forwarding the following message from USENET (alt.sci.planetary) written by Dr. Timothy N. Titus, a member of the MGS TES team, regarding the recent claims of Horvath et al.

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I am a research scientist working on the Mars Global Surveyor Thermal
Emission Spectrometer Team. After having read the article describing the
Hungarian claims, I felt it necessary to make a public response. My
response can be found at:

http://wwwflag.wr.usgs.gov/USGSFlag/Space/MGS_TES/

Recently, Hungarian scientists has reported evidence of
living organisms in the Martian southern polar region. They claim that the
dark spots observed during the southern spring are living organsism,
similar to those found at the south pole of Earth (See CNN account at
http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/space/09/07/mars.hungary.life/index.html)
However, these dark spots have been under study by several scientist,
both at NASA and at the USGS. All of our studies suggest these dark spots
are either bare exposed soil or black dry ice, not living organisms.

The Hungarian claims are also riddiled with other glaring scientific
errors. The article claims,"The Hungarian researcher say that during harsh
martian winters, when temperatures plummet to minus 200 degrees Celsius
(minus 328 Fahrenheit), these so-called Mars Surface Organisms are
protected by a thick blanket of ice which then melts as the planet's early
summer temperatures climb to just above zero." The polar cap surface
temperatures, even in the dead of winter, do not drop below -195
Fahrenheit, which is the temperature at which dry
ice and gaseeous CO2 can co-exist under Martian pressures. The Martian
southern polar cap consists of dry ice (solid CO2), not water ice. In the
spring time, the soild dry ice does not melt, but sublimates, transistioning
directly to gas. The temperature that this occurs is -195 Fahrenheit, not
zero degrees, as suggested by the Hungarian article.

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Alex R. Blackwell
University of Hawaii