London, March 18
Researchers from the US Geological Survey (USGS) have found underground caves on Mars.

The seven sister cave holes have been named Dena, Chlok, Wendy, Annie, Abbey, Nikki and Jeanne.

Glen Cushing from the USGS in Flagstaff, Arizona, got his first hint of the underground cave system from Themis (Mars Odyssey’s thermal emission imaging system) images of the Arsia Mons region near the equator of Mars.

He spotted a system of pit craters, indicative of collapsed areas, and nestled among them half a dozen dark spots ranging in diameter from 100 to 252 m.

He says two of the seven possible openings have also been probed using thermal infrared imaging, which shows that their temperature is pretty constant at any time of day. In daylight, the spots are cooler than the rest of the surface, but not as cool as shadowed areas, and at night the spots are warmer than their surroundings.

Though the caverns do not have sunlit walls or floors, they have holes or skylights in the ceilings of underground caverns, which in other words imply that they are not simply collapsed pits, he says.

“And they don’t have the rims or sprays of surrounding dust that impact craters have. The data suggest that the holes are at least 80 m deep,” Nature quoted Cushing as saying at the lunar and planetary science conference in League City, Texas, this week. He says finding such caverns on Mars is important for researchers keen to find a place for humans to build a base on the planet, or for those looking for signs of ancient life.

“Just as on Earth, caves provide shelter from the elements, particularly dust storms and temperature extremes. On the red planet, they also protect from the rain of micro-meteorites, solar flares, ultraviolet radiation and high-energy particles from space,” he says.

Such underground caverns might also harbour stable water ice, he adds.

Alfred McEwen, principal investigator on HiRISE (NASA’s high-resolution Imaging science experiment, on board Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter) says it is quite plausible for caves to exist on the Red Planet.

He is, however, a little less convinced by the water-ice theory.

“Ice is not stable in contact with the martian atmosphere. It is possible to have ice in the subsurface, but not in a cave,” he says. — ANI

London, March 18
A 15-year-old boy was stabbed to death in a London street in the latest teenage murder to hit the capital, the police said today.

‘’My thoughts are for his mother — it’s Mother’s Day today, it must be absolutely dreadful for the family,’’ Detective Chief Inspector Ian Stevenson told reporters at the murder scene.

‘’I cannot imagine what they are going through. It’s a very sad day.’’

The boy, who has not been named, collapsed on the pavement before horrified passersby near West Ham’s football stadium yesterday evening.

The black teenager had blood pouring from a wound in his leg. He died later in hospital. The police said it was looking for two youths seen near the murder scene.

Witnesses saw two young black men running away after the boy was stabbed, he added. One local woman said she rang 999 after she found the teenager lying in the street.

‘’I saw a young boy lying on the floor and a dark patch which I thought was blood,’’ Sandra Wynands told Sky News. ‘’I asked these two boys what’s wrong and they stated: “I think he’s drunk or something and he’s just fell over’.’’ — Reuters

Sydney, March 18
Thousands of Australians thronged the Sydney Harbour Bridge today to mark the 75th birthday of the iconic landmark which has come to represent the city to millions around the world.

An estimated 200,000 people walked the 503 metres across the bridge, which was the biggest of its kind in the world, when it was opened on March 19, 1932.

By late afternoon, almost half that many had crossed the bridge, which spans Sydney from the north to the south, organisers said.

Celebrations began with an official re-opening the bridge, during which the governor of New South Wales, Marie Bashir, described the steel arch, which reaches to 134 metres, as a “Sydney legend.”

“The bridge has given us a legend, a story, a source of global pride,” Marie said. — AFP

Opposition parties have left it for former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to decide whether or not to delay the PML-N's all parties’ conference (APC) in London, scheduled for later this month, in view of the 
ongoing judicial crisis.

Senior leaders of the opposition and civil society organisations at a late night meeting on Saturday discussed the evolving situation in the country in the wake of the judicial crisis resulting from presidential reference against Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry. They decided to extend full support to lawyers in their current struggle for upholding the independence of judiciary. The leaders were shocked to find the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) leaders missing at the meeting. Imran Khan and some other opposition leaders too tried to contact senior leadership of the PPP, but could not get any satisfactory explanation.

She convened a meeting of the central committee of the party in Karachi on March 13 withdrawing entire party leadership from across the country on a crucial day when Chief Justice Iftikhar was to appear before the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) amid a spontaneous popular acclaim.

Later in the wake of general criticism, the PPP local leaders and activists greeted the Chief Justice on Friday outside the Supreme Court building, disrupting lawyers’ plans for an organised reception. Chanting pro-Bhutto slogans and waving party flags, they virtually hijacked the reception by surrounding the car carrying Iftikhar.

Analysts here noted that Bhutto had avoided direct criticism of Musharraf during the entire crisis apparently leaving some room to bargain a favourable deal from the beleaguered military ruler. She is currently in the United States where the Bush administration has reiterated support to Musharraf while reacting cautiously to the current judicial crisis.

Talking to newsmen after the meeting, Raja Zafrul Haq, chairman of Sharif's faction of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N), said all opposition parties, including the Awami National Party and parties of the Pakistan Oppressed Nations (PONM), attended the meeting barring the PPP. He told reporters the meeting left it to Sharif to announce his decision about the possible postponement of the APC. Haq said some participants of the meeting were of the view that the conference should be postponed because it would be imprudent for opposition leaders to leave the country at this time of crisis. He said the meeting decided that the opposition leaders would attend a protest gathering arranged by lawyers in Sindh on March 19.