Is There Life on Mars?

Looking up at Mars in the night sky really opens up your imagination. Could there be
Martians living there? And if there are, could they be looking up to Earth and wondering the
same thing? Sadly with all of our rovers and orbiters that have been to and are currently on
Mars our imaginations are being replaced by fact. The truth is that we have not found any
Martians. Mars is a wasteland, ultimately a dead planet. Although there are no signs of
current life, we have found evidence of past activity on Mars. That could mean that there
was life thousands of years ago. But our search for other life might just continue beyond
Mars. There are more promising chances of life on the Kepler planets. In other words, there
are no signs of current life on Mars even though there could have been life there millions
years ago and the Kepler planets look more promising.

So far no life has been found on Mars. But we do know that it was a lot like Earth for
the first billion years of the solar system (Siegel) which is a big step to figuring out Mars.
The planet has erosion as if there was running water at one point in Mars life time. If it was
like Earth then there is a high chance of life. Today, Mars is dry, desolate, and frozen. Its
atmosphere is much thinner than earths atmosphere, so it is very hard to believe that
anything could be living on this deserted planet. Mars does not have enough gravity to hold
onto an atmosphere that could heat it sufficiently (Robinson). The temperature is an
important aspect in searching for potential life. The planet needs to be warm enough to have
liquid water and from our experiences on earth organisms have a hard time living in harsh
climates. Even though there seems no hope in finding life, we have sent multiple rovers to
conduct tests. The Curiosity rover that's been tooling around the surface of the Red Planet
for more than a year, taking measurements of the air and the soil, has found no methane.
(Garber) Methane is the by-product of microbial respiration, so having no methane makes
Mars be highly unlikely to obtaining life. This means that life does not and cannot exist on
the planet. Also If you had microbial life somewhere on Mars that was really healthy and
cranking away, you might see some of the signatures of that in the atmosphere, said
mission scientist Paul Mahaffy of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Most organisms exert
carbon dioxide and methane when preforming daily processes, these gasses then go into the
atmosphere. If there are no signs of these chemicals in the atmosphere, it is highly unlikely
that there is anything living. Until we find any evidence of life on Mars, the planet is
currently dead.

In the process of looking for current life the rovers have made a different discovery,
that there was life on Mars. Weve found evidence for not only rivers and lakes on Mars, but
also dried up oceans that have left frozen ground water behind. (Siegel). Having evidence
that there was water on Mars makes us most almost certain that there was living organisms.
Water supports life so there must have been some sort of molecules evolving. On the
negative side, water on Mars could also mean that any probable life was not well-preserved.
We have yet to dig deeply into the guts of Mars, so we do not know if there could be fossils.
"We have found a habitable environment that is so benign and supportive of life that if this
water was around and you had been on the planet, you would have been able to drink it,"
said John Grotzinger, Curiosity's chief project scientist. This evidence is based on a sample of
powder the Curiosity rover obtained by drilling into a rock. The powder contained a number
of chemicals including sulfur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and carbon. These
chemicals are claimed to be the ingredients for life, meaning that there was high possibility

of life when these chemicals were out and about. From these discoveries, NASA is now
almost certain that life either once existed or at least could have existed on Mars. (Schiller).
Even though this is an amazing discovery it does appear that the life has all died. The
extraordinary rivers and oceans that used to dominate Mars are now gone, and with it the
life has left too.
Right now Mars does not look too promising to be obtaining life. What if Mars disappoints us?
Where else could we possibly look for life? There are a three planets that have been
described as the, best candidates so far for habitable worlds outside our own solar

system (Landau). These planets are called Kepler-62e, Kepler-62f, and Kepler-69c.
The planets rotate around their star, Kepler-62, which relatively similar to our sun
only smaller and cooler. The three planets are in the habitable zone which is an area
fairly close to the star. This area is more probable to have planets that are obtaining
life because these planets are warm enough to have liquid water. Where there is
clean flowing water, life is known to follow. Earth is in the habitable zone of our solar
system. This is a very relevant similarity as life is unlikely to live in any other hotter
or colder area. But these planets are not nearby The Kepler-62 star is 1,200 lightyears away and the, Kepler-69 is 2,700 (light years away). (Landau). Which
means it will probably take astronomers decades to find out for sure if the planets
are sustaining life. Kepler-62f looks particularly exciting as this one could be a
"water world" of mostly deep oceans. (Landau). This is a big and exciting discovery
compared to the findings we got from Mars. We do not know much about these
planets now, but when we dig a little deeper we could possibly find the aliens that
we have been looking for so desperately.

Even though Mars appeared to be a very probable place to find life, humankind has
been disappointed. The wasteland does not support much more than rocks, dust,
and a thin atmosphere. Even the discovery of the probability of past life on Mars is
not enough to quench our hunger for knowledge of aliens. The Kepler planets is
where our real hope of finding life should be placed. Who knows, life on the Kepler
planets could be completely different to what we are used to on Earth. So do not
shut down your imagination because of the disappointing news from Mars, imagine
swimming with the native Kepler beings 1,200 light years away.

By: Serena

Works Cited:
- Landau, Elizabeth. "NASA: Yes, Mars Could Have Hosted Life." CNN. Cable News
Network, 01 Jan. 1970. Web. 11 Dec. 2013.
- Landau, Elizabeth. "3 New Planets Could Host Life." CNN. Cable News Network, 01
Jan. 1970. Web. 10 Dec. 2013.

-Robinson, Martin. "NASA Says There Is NO Life on Mars: Curiosity Rover Hasn't
Discovered Any Clues That the Atmosphere Supports Living Things." Mail Online.
N.p., 20 Sept. 2013. Web. 08 Dec. 2013
-Schiller, Ben. "Life On Mars: How The Red Planet Might Have Looked When It Was
Habitable | Co.Exist | Ideas Impact." Co.Exist. N.p., 15 Nov. 2013. Web. 08 Dec.
2013.
-Siegel, Ethan. "Seed Magazineabout." Mars: A Teeming Past?
SEEDMAGAZINE.COM. N.p., 9 Nov. 2009. Web. 08 Dec. 2013.
-Warren, James. "Blogs." New York Daily News. N.p., 4 Dec. 2013. Web. 11 Dec.
2013.