Is There Life on Mars?

Is There Life on Mars? (SA/2023)

 

 

The question of whether there is - or at some point has been - life on Mars is one that continues to excite the popular imagination, as well as arouse the professional interest of astrobiologists.

 

Indeed, the seach for microbial Martian life or, at the very least, traces of such life - so called biosignatures - is one of the main reasons NASA keep sending missions to the Red Planet.    

 

However, whilst evidence has been found that Mars could have once supported life in the past - for it wasn't always the dry and arid planet that we know today - there's nothing to indicate that life is still present now.      

 

But the thing is, I don't really understand why it matters or why anyone should care: for whilst there may or may not have been life on Mars billions of years ago, there's presently an abundant and mind-boggling variety of living organisms here on Earth - it's the freakiest show, as Bowie might say.

 

Indeed, as the above photograph illustrates, there's probably more life to be found on a single red tile of my front door step than on the entire surface of the Red Planet and surely we should cherish and preserve this life, rather than spend billions of dollars looking for alien beings.        

 

For me, a tiny baby garden snail inspires far more wonder than E.T. (Oh man, look at those molluscs go!)