Bookmakers stopped taking bets on signs that life once existed on Mars today after NASA found evidence that the red planet had a wet climate.
Ladbrokes has closed the book on evidence emerging that Mars once harboured living organisms.
The company said punters who may have placed bets in the 1970s at odds of 1,000/1 would cost bookies a fortune if proof of Martian life forms were found.
NASA scientists claimed to have “strong evidence” that “at least one part of Mars had a persistently wet environment that could possibly have been hospitable to life”.
The Opportunity rover probe, which landed on Mars five weeks ago, has been studying the composition of rocks which NASA said showed they were once covered by flowing water.
Ladbrokes spokesman Warren Lush said: “Following the latest news from NASA we think it is now likely that evidence of past life on Mars will be found in the coming years.”
The odds on past life on Mars when the book closed were 16/1.
But punters were still being offered the chance to place a bet on existing extraterrestrial life at odds of 500/1, Ladbrokes said.
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2603364
Ladbrokes has closed the book on evidence emerging that Mars once harboured living organisms.
The company said punters who may have placed bets in the 1970s at odds of 1,000/1 would cost bookies a fortune if proof of Martian life forms were found.
NASA scientists claimed to have “strong evidence” that “at least one part of Mars had a persistently wet environment that could possibly have been hospitable to life”.
The Opportunity rover probe, which landed on Mars five weeks ago, has been studying the composition of rocks which NASA said showed they were once covered by flowing water.
Ladbrokes spokesman Warren Lush said: “Following the latest news from NASA we think it is now likely that evidence of past life on Mars will be found in the coming years.”
The odds on past life on Mars when the book closed were 16/1.
But punters were still being offered the chance to place a bet on existing extraterrestrial life at odds of 500/1, Ladbrokes said.
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2603364
