US space agency NASA says pictures taken by its astronauts do not prove the existence or otherwise of a manmade Ram Setu bridge as mentioned in the Hindu epic Ramayana.
"I am not aware of any carbon dating either," said NASA spokesman Michael Braukus, refuting claims by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that the agency had the Adam's bridge in Palk Strait - known as Ram Setu in India - carbon dated as being 1.7 million years old.
"Some people have taken pictures taken by our astronauts to make their claim. No position can be taken on the basis of these photographs in any way," Braukus said when asked to comment on the controversy surrounding the site of the proposed Rs.24 billion Sethusamudram canal project off India's southern tip.
Back in October 2002 too the US agency had rebutted a story circulated by an Indian news agency based on claims made by a couple of NRI websites and Hindu news services that "space images taken by NASA" had revealed "a mysterious ancient bridge in the Palk Strait".
"The mysterious bridge was nothing more than a 30 km long, naturally-occurring chain of sandbanks called Adam's bridge," Hess had added.
