Is there Life on Mars Today - and Where?In a comment published today in Nature Astronomy, Dr. Nathal
Is there Life on Mars Today - and Where?In a comment published today in Nature Astronomy, Dr. Nathalie Cabrol, Director of the Carl Sagan Center for Research at the SETI Institute, challenges assumptions about the possibility of modern life on Mars held by many in the scientific community.As the Perseverance rover embarks on a journey to seek signs of ancient life in the 3.7 billion years old Jezero crater, Cabrol theorizes that not only life could still be present on Mars today, but it could also be much more widespread and accessible than previously believed. Her conclusions are based on years of exploration of early Mars analogs in extreme environments in the Chilean altiplano and the Andes funded by the NASA Astrobiology Institute. It’s essential, she argues, that we consider microbial habitability on Mars through the lens of a 4-billion-year-old environmental continuum rather than through frozen environmental snapshots as we tend to do. Also critical is to remember that, by all terrestrial standards, Mars became an extreme environment very early. -- source link