M2K4 Roaming the Red Planet -Why Mars/ The Quest for Water
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Why Mars
Exploring Mars
The Quest for Water
Mission to Mars
The fundamental requirements for life as we know it today are liquid water, organic compounds and an energy source, such as the Sun or volcanoes. Although it may appear unlikely that life existed on Mars' hostile surface, scientists are intrigued by the possibility that complex organisms, perhaps microbes, may have gained a foothold in ancient times when Mars may have been warmer and wetter, perhaps migrating below ground, where conditions were more benign.
In the 1980s and 1990s, biologists discovered that microbial life has an amazing flexibility for surviving in extreme environments -- whether extraordinarily hot, or cold, or dry, or under immense pressures -- that would be completely inhospitable to humans or complex animals. These discoveries affected how scientists view life on Mars. Perhaps life thrived billions of years ago in an active volcanic spring. Perhaps life in some form could persist today in underground springs warmed by heat vents around smoldering volcanoes, or even entombed beneath thick ice caps.
The scientific debate rages on. How wet was the planet, and for how long, and when? What eventually happened to all the liquid water? To answer these questions, we look at the diverse array of clues that water left on Mars, such as the rocks littering the surface. Rocks are made of minerals. On Earth, some minerals form only in association with liquid water. Other minerals are profoundly altered when hot water runs through them. The mineral make-up of martian rocks will give scientists a better understanding of the history of liquid water on the planet, which is one of the key aspects to understanding whether Mars was ever "alive".
Even if we ultimately learn that Mars never harbored life as we know it here
on Earth, scientific exploration of the Red Planet can assist in our understanding
of the history and evolution of life on our own home world. Mars may be a fossil
graveyard, recording the chemical conditions that fostered life on Earth, where
the record of the life's first moments is likely to have been eradicated forever.