The search for extraterrestrial life just got a big boost from Nasa’s stunning announcement this week that it now has its strongest evidence yet of liquid water on Mars.
So did the prospects for human exploration of the Red Planet because the presence of flowing water could help sustain future manned missions.
“We now have great opportunities to be on the right locations on Mars to fully investigate the existence of life on Mars,” according to John Grunsfeld, Nasa’s associate administrator for science missions.
The evidence advanced by the space agency centres on some unusual streaks found on steep slopes on the Martian surface.
A team of experts concluded in a paper published in the journal Nature Geoscience that water played a vital role in the formation of the lines because of the presence of hydrated salt minerals, which contain water molecules.
Nasa says the findings “provide the strongest evidence yet that liquid water flows intermittently on present-day Mars”.
Even before this week’s announcement, scientists believed chances were great that microbial life forms exist below the Martian surface, possibly in subterranean aquifers.
Life forms probably could only survive below ground because the surface of Mars is so inhospitable, bombarded as it is by ultraviolet rays from the sun that would destroy all life as we know it, say experts, who note that Mars’ thin atmosphere would offer little protection.
If there is water on Mars in sufficient quantity then it would be possible to grow plants in inflatable greenhouses, scientists predict.
Since plants take in carbon dioxide, which is plentiful in Mars, and put out oxygen, they could serve to produce food while at the same time creating breathable environments.
Nasa officials are confident that over the next five years they can unlock some of the planet’s secrets and thereby help to set the stage for future manned missions to Mars.
In March 2016, Nasa will launch a Mars lander called InSight, which for the first time will be able to peer below the Martian surface.
The European Space Agency, as part of its ExoMars programme, plans to launch a Mars orbiter in 2016, followed by a robot and exploration platform on the planet’s surface two years later, in collaboration with Russia.
The objective of these missions is to detect methane and other signs of biological activity.
Finally, in 2020, the United States will send a new robotic rover similar to but more sophisticated than Curiosity to take Martian soil samples and bring them back to Earth.
The US space agency envisages its first manned mission to Mars in the 2030s, if not sooner.