Science fiction fans know a lot about Mars. Fans of H.G. Wells know there is life there, watching us keenly and closely with far greater intelligence than man’s. Fans of Doctor Who know not to drink Martian water. Fans of really bad B-movies know the bad guys of Mars are no match for Santa Claus (if you haven’t heard about this movie before, you need to click here).
Source: Hubblesite.org
Scientists are finally catching up. Mars, they once said, is too harsh an environment for life to exist. It doesn’t have liquid water. It doesn’t have any protection from cosmic radiation. It doesn’t have the carbon compounds needed for life as we know it.
Now they aren’t so sure. They’ve found evidence of liquid water, and maybe that excess radiation from space isn’t so bad after all. It is possible, they say, for microbial life to exist on Mars (which is why you shouldn’t drink the water). As for those carbon compounds… a new probe is scheduled to launch this weekend to check on that.
The Mars Science Laboratory, also known as the Curiosity Rover, is the biggest, most sophisticated machine ever sent to Mars. It’s the size of a car, carries ten different scientific instruments, and NASA says it has enough plutonium fuel to keep it running for at least two years… probably more. It will land in a place called Gale Crater, where it will examine exposed layers of ancient rock and search for organic compounds in Martian soil.
No doubt Curiosity will find evidence of what we Sci-Fi fans and Santa Claus already know: there is life on Mars… life that apparently doesn’t know the true meaning of Christmas.
Links
- An article about Curiosity from Space.com.
- The 7 Biggest Mysteries of Mars from Space.com.
- A topographical map of Curiosity’s landing site from NASA.
Planet Pailly 
Life on mars is more than forty years old.How?
The first mission to mars in 70s planted enough diverse simple unicelled organism into the damp cool inner surface that were exported from here.
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Any single-celled organisms that traveled to Mars on our previous rovers wouldn’t last long there. If any bacterial life exists on Mars today, it would have be native to that planet. Something that would have been around for millions… maybe billions of years.
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