NASA astrobiologist Heather Graham answered the curious questions. Is there any sign of life on the Red Planet, though it has yet to be discovered? What about the latest research?
Scientists have been searching for life outside of Earth for years, but so far all efforts have failed and, in parallel, their search for life on Mars has been fruitless. While NASA will not give up and keep looking, the agency’s astrobiologist Heather Graham explains why they haven’t found anything so far.
Graham explained in a short video on NASA’s Youtube channel that life on Mars may have existed in the past, but the current state of the planet leaves almost no chance for any living organism. However, when we talk about the impossibility of life on Mars, we actually mean life on the surface of Mars. It was pointed out that if the researchers dug deeper, as they are currently doing, there would be a much higher chance of “finding life”.
NASA Prepares to Provide More Concise Answers
The interior of Mars is better shielded from the radiation that surrounds the Red Planet’s thin atmosphere, and traces of groundwater have been repeatedly found there. To confirm this, we need to wait for samples from Mars to be brought back to Earth and examined. The Perseverance rover is currently helping to obtain new data, and in the future NASA will launch a manned mission that may provide more precise answers.
While we cannot currently say with certainty that life existed on Mars, at least at some point in the planet’s evolution, organic carbon particles found in Gale Crater by the Curiosity rover indirectly confirm this.
