Renewed Hope for Life on the Red Planet

The brief frenzy over possible fossils in a Mars meteorite has fizzled. And even after billions of dollars’ worth of adorable rovers and eagle-eyed orbiters have prodded and probed the planet, the results have been at best ambiguous and at times downright confusing. Yet a growing number of space scientists are upbeat, even buoyant, about the likelihood that Mars is a living world. “A variety of discoveries are creating a kind of buzz,” says Chris McKay, an astrogeophysicist at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. “And people seem more enthusiastic. It’s group psychology.” There has been no single major breakthrough in the search, but a subtle change is taking place within the clubby community dedicated to finding and bringing back organisms—dead or alive—from the Red Planet.

Renewed Hope For Life on the Red Planet

This article does an excellent job of condensing, explaining and placing in context all the recent discoveries regarding the possibility of life on Mars, Shouldn't be missed by anyone interested in the search.

reply to post by iforget


For sure, Mars is still Alive and Kicking.

Well what are your thoughts on life on Mars?? Do you think there is life on Mars now, be in on the top or underground? Personally I believe there is life on Mars, call me nuts I don't care. I think Mars is colonized underground.

reply to post by mblahnikluver


I think that life is everywhere. I wouldnt set it limits at habitable seeming planets er even planets for that matter. In my opinion putting the test performed by viking in context with what we know today indicates that there is life on mars. As a child I remember reading that if we could only find methane/organics/ or extra solar planets that we would know that life exists elsewhere. We have found all three of those things in abundance.

Great summary in that article. Did you catch the part at the end where a paper as of a year ago, seems to reinforce the idea that biologics are the cause of the anomalies in the martian meteor? I still think we've had the proof since that meteor, that there is life on Mars.