In 1996, Bill Clinton announced that we had found signs pointing to life on Mars. A meteorite called Allan Hills 84001, originating from Mars, contained structures that looked like small fossils. It later turned out that they probably weren’t.
This week, something similar happened: The Perseverance rover found geological features that, if they had been found on Earth, would be interpreted as signs of early life. As the authors of the paper reporting the findings write,
Our analysis leads us to conclude that the Bright Angel formation contains textures, chemical and mineral characteristics, and organic signatures that warrant consideration as ‘potential biosignatures’
What are the implications? Does this make it imperative that we send crewed missions to Mars? Some think so, and I tend to agree:
I think the path is set. The light is green. The time for boots on the ground is now. Don’t send a robot to do a human’s job; the technology is too constrained. There are signs of past life on Mars, and so to be sure, we must go.
It’s not going to be easy or fast. The technical challenges are immense and are often underestimated, especially by those who are the most gung-ho. The median aggregate of forecasts on Metaculus estimates that the first humans will arrive in 2043, although the plausible interval around that is very wide.
Nehaveigur 