The Mars & Life

Mars , some basic information

The scientists have not found any evidence for remnants of plants, animals or other significant life forms on mars. But search for life beyond the earth is a natural urge. It is true that our Earth is a wonderful planet but it is only a tiny little rock around an ordinary star. There are billions upon billions such stars in the universe. Even if life is an extremely rare and wondrous natural happening, surely it could have also found a foothold at some other places. One finds that organic molecules of the type used by life forms are found in abundance in many molecular clouds in our own galactic vicinity. If life is not a unique miracle but a natural outcome of far-from-equilibrium thermodynamics in the evolution of matter and energy, one cannot stop Looking for its presence in all sorts  of near - congenial locations .

If we look at other planets of our solar system , we do not find many good candidates. The moon is too small and cannot sustain an atmosphere. Mercury is horribly hot and cold during its days and nights respectively, and cratered much like our moon because it lacks the protection of an atmosphere. Venus seems to have done something wrong during its evolution . It is subject to a runaway greenhouse effect, raising it's temperature to hundreds of degrees Celsius . Jupiter is enormous and has thick atmosphere , with its lower parts at thousands of degrees , altogether in congenial from the point of an earth-centric scientist, even if we were to grant a latitude of few hundred degrees Celsius for survival of life. The moons of Jupiter (like Europa) are beginning to look attractive  because they might have pools of liquid water. Mars on the other hand , seems like an attractive  candidate . There is evidence that it did have flowing water at some time. It probably still has some frozen water below the surface. It's atmosphere is thin , but might not  be completely hopeless in terms of supporting life. We certainly cannot expect elephants , monkeys or men running around there. Signs of even rudimentary life forms would be useful and extremely instructive . Because of all these reasons , I am very partial towards scientists who are devoting an enormous amount of effort to detect evidence of life processes on Mars . Our solar system itself is a tiny part of the universe. We could go on looking for evidence of life having emerged somewhere or the other . Some searches have been made but we have not looked hard enough. Universe is vast, even bigger than we can imagine , search for life by us and giving conclusion that there is no other intelligent life form or simply other life form in the universe is like that taking a glass of water from the Pacific ocean and concluding that there are no fishes in the ocean. The search for life is just beginning , humanity has a very long way ahead to discover more.