万花筒2008-02-19:Life On Mars Looking Doubtful

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New findings from an American space rover on Mars show that much of the planet might have been too salty to sustain life. But scientists are not ruling out the possibility of life altogether, as Sky's Alistair Bunkall reports

Of all the planets in the solar system, Mars has seasons most similar to those here on earth, the theory that water might have once covered large parts of the red planet gave rise to a belief that life might have existed there, but NASA's findings now suggest that planet might be more forbidding than we/ ever thought. 

"Mars is an active world very closely related to the earth, it has an atmosphere, it has clouds, it has morning mist, it has, it has a geology, it has evidence of past water, past volcanism. Therefore, Mars is a really true, exciting, and important world to explore." 

The US craft Opportunity is one of two roving vehicles currently on the planet, it was launched in 2004, and has spent more than 1,400 days analyzing¹ rock samples, analysis of its finding showed that water on the planet would have been incredibly salty, so much so that life would have struggled to get a foothold. 

Coming in the same week that the UK government announced plans to invest in manned Space Missions. NASA's discovery will inevitably² fuel skeptics, who consider space exploration to be a waste of money. 

"Proving that life can exist in / extreme environments which is one of the big breakthroughs in biology in the last 20 years, is an important scientific piece of knowledge, it's also important from the point of view of how it relates to people's view of the world including how they view religion whether or not life can actually form in other places than our own." 

The search for life on Mars will go on, because the frank reality is that should any trace be found, the financial rewards for the countries involved would be massive. No surprise then that there are plenty of missions in the pipeline³ as the next generation of space exploration prepares to lift off.

Alistair Bunkall, Sky News.