Life on Mars ?

For as long as there have been people on Earth they have looked to the skies and wondered about Mars.  For a very long time we thought Mars was inhabited and we feared that Earth would be invaded by these Martians.   In fact Orson Welles panicked America when he produced a realistic radio play that was themed on such an invasion.

Bigger and better telescopes enabled us to examine that planet more closely and we discovered what we thought were " canals " that might have been produced to carry water from the polar regions to the equivalent of that planet's equator.   We slowly became convinced that Mars was some sort of " sister " to Earth and perhaps a calamity had destroyed its people.

The " rocket age " that followed the end of the second world war saw satellites encircle Mars and then came news of a successful landing by a mechanical rover.  Bigger and better rovers are now crawling over the Martian surface and relaying information back to Earth, and the prospect of humans landing on Mars is fast reaching towards reality.

It was a major breakthrough when we discovered that Mars had ice caps and water was present on that planet.  That made the thought of a space colony on Mars possible because it would be daunting to imagine lugging water from Earth to sustain a human outpost.  The presence of water envisioned all sort of engineering possibilities.

Now NASA's " Curiosity " rover is sending back exciting information.  It has detected Methane - and that is a gas produced by living matter.  If Methane is seeping out of the Martian soil it is a good indication that something may be alive beneath the surface because sunlight and the thin Martian air would otherwise breakup  the molecules within a few centuries.  Curiosity is finding Methane spikes at various locations and this is getting scientists very excited.

Until now, pictures sent back by rovers disclose a desolate landscape.  Scientists think Mars may have had a warmer, wetter past and a richer atmosphere with life carrying oxygen present before that drifted away into space.   It is quite possible that whatever life form was present migrated underground - and exists there today.

Some people wonder if Mars is not a warning to us inhabitants of Earth.  We are rapidly over populating and destroying the continents and oceans of this warm and wonderful planet.   The air we breathe is becoming oversaturated with Co2 and the ice that sustains our great rivers is melting away.
We have not learned to live in peace with one another and our inability to produce enough food to feed the planet seems likely to bring war between the tribes as they compete for what remains.

On our present course, perhaps one day Earth may become as desolate as Mars, drifting in space and being defined by some space travellers as showing signs of an earlier inhabitation which has degenerated to dust over the passage of time.