one thing all earthlings share is a sense of curiosity… humans have been looking to the stars for guidance for centuries… wondering if they are alone… scientists across the earth have been looking for signs of life on mars for decades… finding evidence of a single microbe… would be one of the most significant discoveries in human history… thus so far… the search has been in vain… but could change on any given stardate…
apollo
the search for interstellar life isn’t relegated only to living organisms… scientists at one point believed they had already found proof that some lifeforms used to exist on mars… in stardate 1996… the johnson space center in houston found a rock… humans called it alh84001… believing in their traditional way that extraterrestrial life would be subject to such earthly conventions…
extraordinary claims
the rock contained minerals… crystals… and carbon compounds… it also featured what looked like earthling bacterial chains… had the rock come from the humans’ homeworld… those would have been sure signs of life… but things are different in space…
at first… human scientists believed that they had found an answer to the question… was there life on mars… the rock had come from space… and it appeared to harbor microfossils… excitement was in the air… earthlings everywhere were finally taking the claim seriously… that there could be extraterrestrial life…
this occurred during stardate 1996… moving forward into stardate 2020… few scientists believe that alh84001 indeed harbored microbial life… the search for life on mars facts that are upheld by human science continues…
humans enlist robotic help
something is telling about the fact that earthlings cannot decide for themselves whether there are signs of life on mars… humans have already set foot on the moon… even now… they live in space stations orbiting the earth… most believe that a journey to mars remains out of reach… instead… humans have enlisted robots to help them in their search…
currently… there are now two probes known as rovers roaming the surface of mars… where no human has ever set foot… thanks to the pleas of scientists on earth… they are outfitted with biotechnology designed to search for organic molecules… the rovers cannot determine for themselves whether mars harbors any life… they can only find evidence and send it back to earth…
reaching a scientific consensus
most scientists believe that life once existed on the red planet… approximately 75 percent of them think that the rovers will eventually uncover signs of former life… while the other 25 percent of scientists believe mars may be teeming with unseen life right now… that shared belief doesn’t constitute proof… humans may still be decades or even lightyears… away from reaching a scientific consensus…
a limited perspective
when most earthlings think of finding extraterrestrial life… they imagine little green lifeforms… what limited perspective humans have… earthling scientists are a bit different… they know that finding even one living bacterium would be a world-changing event…
- even human scientists are working from a limited perspective… earthlings assume that all living things must closely resemble the forms of life they are most familiar with… there is no proof that all life forms must be carbon-based… just because all life on earth… uses this molecule as its framework…
- some humans are finally starting to think outside the box… concepts like silicon-based lifeforms used to be thought of as science-fiction… moreover… some researchers believe they may exist elsewhere in the universe…
- phytoliths composed of microscopic silicon dioxide particles live on the human’s homeworld in plants… photosynthetic earth algae use silicon dioxide in their skeletons… even earthling chemists have synthesized molecules made of both carbon and silicon… to say that nature could not possibly find a way to coax life from this element elsewhere in the universe… is the worst form of hubris…
the future of mars awaits mankind
human technology is still limited… but it progresses faster than some thought possible… earthlings have always reached out to the stars for guidance… and always will… if life exists on mars or other inhabitable planets… they will find it eventually… for now… those who want proof of extraterrestrial life are stuck with speculation… but the future of mars awaits mankind…
BY APOLLO THE OLYMPIAN
