Life on mars in near future

For many centuries Mars has been the most lucrative and secretive planet, inspiring people to seek answers to its questions, to search and to discover. Whenever we are talking about life on Mars, the most disputable issue of the Red Planet is whether any kind of life exists and whether it can be studied and analyzed

In general, people are anxious and do discuss the controversial topic of life on Mars and try to trace the history of this mystery planet.  It is not surprising that the fourth planet from the Sun attracts far greater attention from researchers and the general population than other planets of the Solar system. 

Since the late seventeenth century when the first more reliable telescopes were invented, Mars has become the object of much discussion and speculation. Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it was discovered that the seasonal cycle of Mars resembles the one of Earth, that the planet has ice caps on its poles and that its day-and-night cycle lasts only about forty minutes more than our typical Earth cycle.  

In addition, observations of dark areas on the surface have been identified as sea beds by William Herschel, William Lassell and other astronomers of the 18^th and 19^th centuries made the scientific community suggest, with a certain degree of certainty, that life may exist on the Red Planet. Mars-related agitation reached its peak, when the long threads of “channels”, tracing the planet surface, were discovered by G.V. Schiaparelli and later studied by P. Lowell. 

The latter did not support the view of Mars as a“second Earth”, instead, he emphasized that the Red Planet did not have favourable conditions for life, that its surface is very dry and practically all water exists in the form of frozen poles glaciers. 

At the same time, Lowell came to the conclusion that these “channels” had been made purposefully by some intelligent creatures, living on Mars, as a means to irrigate the predominantly waterless lands of the planet. In his research, published in 1896, Lowell wrote that “the broad physical conditions of the planet are not antagonistic to some form of life”, that “there is an apparent dearth of water on the planet’s surface and, therefore, if beings of sufficient intelligence inhabit it, they would have to resort to irrigation to support life”. 

The suggested existence of the developed Mars civilization inspired the writer George Wells to write his most famous novel “The War of the Worlds”, which tells about the invasion of greedy and cruel Martians, willing to enslave Earth’s population and appropriate all Earth resources. 

However, the myth of Martian civilization was dispelled in the following decades. When the telescopes became more precise, and it appeared that these “channels” were nothing but an optical illusion. 

In the early nineteenth century, the invention of the spectroscope and later the thermocouple helped provide researchers with enough proof that Mars lacks the resources for life. They found that the Red Planet has no water, no oxygen in its atmosphere and its surface temperature fluctuations are great and a very thin atmosphere which makes life on Mars very unlikely. 

The most informative epoch of Mars study started in the second half of the twentieth century, with the invention of spaceships and satellites, and other controllable mechanisms that could be launched into open space. Again, the scientific effort focused upon the search for life on the Red Planet. 

For many decades, exploration of the superior planet has been no more than science fiction. However, though partly disappointing, recent research of space make Mars far more appealing than other planets and far more welcoming [even the idea of “terraforming” Mars has emerged]. In particular, “Venus’s atmosphere has a crushing deep sea-like pressure; Mercury and Pluto have no atmosphere; and Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune don’t even have a surface we would stand on”.

In 1965, the first successful flyby of the man-made spacecraft near the Red Planet took place – the photos, made by Mariner 4, launched by the USA, finally destroyed the illusion of the “Red Planet”, populated by sophisticated creatures. Its surface appeared to be covered with craters, like the Moon. The atmospheric pressure prevented the existence of liquid water which also means no vegetation. Most importantly, Mars was directly exposed to deadly cosmic radiation because there was no global magnetic field that could serve [as it does on Earth] as a protective shield against it.

In 1969 the pictures of the red planet, made by spacecraft Mariner 9, showed that the landscape of Mars includes spots looking like former seas and riverbeds. There were valleys and mountains, thus the scientists suggested that in the very distant past Mars had a life-supporting climate, similar to that of Earth. 

It means, that the samples of primitive life, such as bacteria, could have preserved deeply in the under-surface, escaping the life-threatening impact of the cosmic radiation. Inspired by this discovery, the two 1976 Viking missions took samples of the planet’s surface and were later analyzed. In the end, the samples had no trace of microorganisms or any other primitive form of life, and the missions were considered a disappointment. 

However, in the late 1990s, interest in the Red Planet rose again, after some researchers claimed they had found convincing proofs of the fact that there was life on Mars – from the Martian meteorites, having fallen to Earth thirteen thousand years ago.  Gazes and micro-imprints found in the meteorites could be these proofs. In the subsequent years, a series of Mars exploration missions were launched – Pathfinder mission (1996), Spirit and Opportunity robot rovers landing (2003), and the Phoenix mission (2008). Traces of methane were discovered in Mars atmosphere [which can be the result of life activity of some forms of life]. Besides, in 2010, the Spirit rover got stuck in wet ground, and for the researchers, the presence of liquid implies a greater probability of life presence on Mars. 

For centuries people have speculated about the possibility of life on Mars due to the planet's proximity and similarity to Earth but still, there are no pieces of evidence about it at this moment. Modern scientific inquiry has emphasized the search for water, chemical biosignatures in the soil and rocks at the planet's surface, and the search for biomarker gases in the atmosphere.  

Discovery on Mars
On June 7, 2018, NASA announced that the Curiosity rover had discovered organic molecules in sedimentary rocks dating to three billion years old. The detection of organic molecules in rocks indicate that some of the building blocks for life are present.

• Unearth organic molecules on the surface of Mars
• Large amounts of underground ice have been found on Mars and there is a possible volume of water that can be detected
• organic molecules in sedimentary rocks
• Oxygen on Mars 0.2 per cent

Although collectively the evidence in total, weighs in favour of biology.  Out of a total of 12 landing attempts on the red planet from different space agencies, only eight have been successful- and all of these have been from NASA. 

We are in the midst of the 21^st century, remains an open question of whether life currently exists on Mars or has existed there in the past.  In 2021, NASA landed the Perseverance rover on Mars. Its mission is to seek the signs of life and collect rocks and soil samples for a future mission to return to Earth.

Undoubtedly, if proven, the presence of life on Mars may produce an enormous effect not only on the scientific community but on the entire population of Earth. Taking into consideration the similarity of certain features of Mars [day-night cycle, seasonal cycle and others] to the ones of Earth, and most importantly the presence of solid surface, the most daring assumption providing that the reliable signs of life on the terrestrial planet are found, is that people can relocate to Mars someday.