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No, not present life. We have known for some time that Mars is bereft of life. We long hoped to find a civilization on Mars, our fictions and scientific speculation filled with wonder about it. But alas our probes landed and we learned that there is no life on the planet Mars.
This has not, however, eliminated the search for E. T. on Mars, nor our fascinating with the Red Planet. The question now is "did Mars have life on it the the ancient past"?
New evidence suggest that there very well may have been life on the Planet. Yahoo News reports:
A University of Colorado at Boulder research team claims "the first definitive evidence of shorelines on Mars" in a statement released today.
The scientists see signs of "a deep, ancient lake," which would have implications for the potential for past life on Mars. Life as we know it requires water, and while Mars is dry now, if there was abundant water in the past -- as many studies have suggested -- then life would have been a possibility. There is, however, no firm evidence that life does or ever did exist on the red planet.
Researchers estimate the lake existed more than 3 billion years ago. It covered as much as 80 square miles and was up to 1,500 feet deep -- roughly the equivalent of Lake Champlain bordering the United States and Canada, said Gaetano Di Achille, who led the study out of the University of Colorado at Boulder.
The big news here is that Lakes and life go hand in hand. This does not mean that there was ever life on Mars, but it makes the possibility much stronger that there indeed was.
It would be an interesting thing to find traces of past life on Mars. Finding alien life would deeply enrich our knowledge of life in general - since we presently only know life on one planet!
Also interesting, perhaps the remnants of ancient lakes suggest that we could - in the future - modify the surface of Mars to the point where humans can colonize it. This is a popular theme in Science fiction, and scientists have long thought of the possibility of a human colony on the planet Mars. Perhaps this dream can become fact ... not any time soon however.
Posted June 18th, 2009 by mattwion
