Life On Mars Confirmed By NASA?

Life on Mars: not what you might expect

First, we need to temper your expectations: NASA didn’t find any little green men on Mars. Even though there are a surprising number of government reports detailing UFOs, there has yet to be any confirmation that there’s any intelligent life in the universe other than ourselves. Therefore, the kind of extraterrestrial life that NASA typically finds potential evidence of is things like bacteria and other living matter normally only found here on Earth.

Now, the one finding doesn’t completely rule out the other. For example, there are some people who think that Mars might have been home to intelligent life countless years ago, and what we find on the red planet might simply be what is left after those aliens either died off or left the planet. But even if we never find aliens on other planets, it’s still cool to know that Mars might be host to some of the forms of life that we’ve never seen outside of our own planet.

Speckled rocks: a game-changing discovery

When NASA explores Mars, they do so by using high-tech rovers. Recently, the Perseverance Rover found something that might not sound all that special: speckled rocks. It’s the kind of phenomenon that many without a scientific background would take for granted. Like, why should we care about these muddy stones when NASA already brought home some cool moon rocks decades ago?

The short answer is that these Mars rocks have something that the lunar rocks don’t: a potential biosignature. Now, “potential” is the keyword here because it’s hard to prove this is a biosignature for many reasons, including the fact that cuts to NASA’s budget (more on this in a bit) mean they may never be able to bring the rocks home to properly study them. But there are ways to remotely study these fascinating samples, and a confirmation of that biosignature may change everything we thought we knew about the red planet.

What makes these rocks different from other Mars samples?

Obviously, NASA has discovered plenty of rocks on Mars before. So what makes these rocks so special, and why is the biosignature aspect so important? The short answer is that the rocks have colorful specks on them. And on Earth, those kinds of markings are usually only created by microbial activity.

Why is that significant? Well, remember our earlier discussion: there has never previously been any confirmation of life on Mars, only hopes and speculations. By definition, microbial activity means that there was, at one time, some form of life on our nearest planetary neighbor. That’s what makes it a possible biosignature, or confirmation of organic life.

Not all samples could be tested for signs of past life, which is a big part of what makes this discovery so exciting. If NASA can find a way to properly test these rocks, they can tell us whether there was ever life on Mars, even if that life has gone extinct long ago.

The difficulty of confirming microbial life

All of this news about potential life on Mars is very exciting. But, you may wonder, why has NASA not actually confirmed anything? It all comes down to several different factors that explain why these speckled rocks aren’t exactly a smoking gun.

For one thing, even though the speckled pattern is usually created by microbial activity here on Earth, there may be other explanations for what caused those spots up on Mars. Pretty much the only thing that could truly confirm these findings would be if NASA researchers could bring some of these stones back to Earth to investigate.

Normally, getting government funding for bringing such a significant discovery back to the United States would be easy. But Donald Trump has made a budget request to Congress that would end funding for the Mars Sample Return mission. Scientists may find other, more fiscally-responsible ways to bring these rocks back, but right now, it looks like they’re destined to stay put on Mars.