The Mars rover, Curiosity, has just completed two years on the surface of that planet.
All is going well. The very fancy device has found water in the sand that was thought to be dry. In fact, about 1 ℓ of water for about 30 ℓ of sand – so there is a lot.
This has been an exciting discovery because most of Mars was always thought of as being very dry and barren. The water content seems to be widespread. Of course, for a long time, it has been known that the frozen poles contain water ice.
As summer arrives, for each hemisphere, each ice cap can be seen to melt back some distance for summer. It is thought that liquid water may run as rivers from the melting ice, but there are no pictures of that yet.
Imagine how much fun it will be to see video footage of small streams flowing on Mars, if that is really what happens.
Curiosity, which is about the size of a small car, is now slowly making its way up a mountain. It is a 5 500 m mountain called Mount Sharp. Curiosity is now at the foot and is very slowly finding a path upwards. The controllers back in the command centre are not in a hurry – they cannot afford any mistakes. The interest in the mountain is that it is many millions of years old.
The current scientific evidence is that the slopes of the mountain will most probably expose the rocks of different periods of the past ages of Mars. So, the plan is for Curiosity to examine the different layers as it climbs upwards to see what can be found out about the past life of Mars.
There is already tantalising evidence of ancient freshwater lakes on the red planet, and chemical elements have also been found that could have played a part in the evolution of life forms. So, one can conjure up a mental image of large lakes of water, clouds in the sky, wind, rain and also the possible development of life. The possible life may have been no more than virtually invisible bacteria, but, on the other hand, maybe not.
I emphasise that there is no evidence that Mars once had frogs or fish but the evidence found so far does not exclude that possibility. This is all great fun.
This hunt is not only fun – the question of the possibility of life is a rather major question, not only for Mars but also for the whole of the universe.
Say, it is the case that, for some reason, life only evolved on our earth – then we carry on as usual, so to speak. But just imagine if, out there, in the reaches of space, there are other people, like us. Wow! What a thought.
Back to Mars. Philosophically speaking, if only the earth has life, then that is it . . . as far as life goes, we would know about nearly all of it. But if Mars has even the tiniest of bugs, then such a reality will very strongly imply that there are other people out there. Why? Well, if Mars has even rudimentary life, then it means that life is not confined to earth. It will mean that life can be anywhere and everywhere in the far reaches of space.
It would imply that there are many millions of planets on which life has evolved – so many that the chances of some of them having evolved up to our level, or beyond, is a real possibility. See why the possible discovery of bugs on Mars is so important?