For centuries people have speculated about the possibility of life on Mars owing to the planet's proximity and similarity to Earth. Serious searches for evidence of life began in the 19th century, and continue via telescopic investigations and landed missions. While early work focused on phenomenology and bordered on fantasy, modern scientific inquiry has emphasized the search for chemical biosignatures of life in the soil and rocks at the planet's surface, and the search for biomarker gases in the atmosphere. Fictional Martians have been a recurring feature of popular entertainment of the 20th and 21st centuries, and it remains an open question whether life currently exists on Mars, or has existed there in the past.
Read more about Life On Mars: Early Speculation, Meteorites, Liquid Water, Methane, Formaldehyde, Silica, Geysers On Mars, Cosmic Radiation, Life On Earth Under Martian Conditions
Famous quotes containing the words life and/or mars:
“Thy fate is the common fate of all;
Into each life some rain must fall.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)
“It makes us, or it mars us, think on that,
And fix most firm thy resolution.”
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