Latest on Mars: NASA's Mars 2020 mission will try to answer quite a few questions about the red planet.
One of the most pressing obviously concerns the possibility that there are forms of life on Mars, or that Mars has hosted life forms. The very latest images of the various rovers (from 2018 onwards more and more pregnant) would seem to dispel the mystery and comfort in which way this thesis. The latest space discoveries from the recently landed probes will take us new steps forward on what Mars is today.
Latest NASA news on Mars: it is a largely arid planet, but there are also clear traces of the past existence of water, as well as deposits highlighted by recent research.
I don't think we're prepared for such a thing. No, we are not
Jim Green, NASA Chief Scientific Officer
These elements linked to the latest photographs and the latest discoveries on Mars have made way for the possibility that there are other signs on the planet to be grasped, that in short there is life on Mars: vehicles and landers will be there to find it, finding it among all the anomalies who periodically pass in front of Curiosity and fellow rover.
What if we find it?
We are and will be there (also) to look for evidence of life on Mars, the clues seem to be all there. Traces of life on Mars have been over and over again reported by studies, theoretical and experimental. But what if we found them? If there was still life, how would humanity react?
In an interview with the Telegraph, NASA Chief Scientist Jim Green made a blunt announcement, saying that we are not ready to accept the idea of alien life on Mars.
Part of the Mars 2020 mission is preparing samples of Martian material to bring them to Earth. The latest news from NASA says that it could contain evidence, after so many mysteries and clues, of what science has been looking for for years on the red planet and of what the new discoveries on Mars reveal. If the next NASA mission (or perhaps the European Space Agency's ExoMars mission) is lucky, the same rovers on site could confirm the presence of life on Mars, even before the soil samples return.
And at that point?
"It would be revolutionary," Green says. “It would kickstart a whole new branch of thinking and research. I don't think we're prepared for something like this. No, we are not".
Green believes that finding unmistakable signs of life on Mars, past or present, would open up a universe of new questions that we are completely unable to answer. The space news that reaches us (edit: the latest discovery on Mars is precisely that there are those who take their past and present lives for granted) are quite dense.
Latest from Mars
(update April 27, 2020) Beyond NASA discoveries and the latest images of Mars, there is the coronavirus issue. Among the mysteries about Mars there is now the one about the Mars 2020 mission. Will it be done, won't it be done? The latest news from Mars says yes, and with a special helicopter, which will allow man to proceed to the first controlled flight to another planet.
A test for Faith
There are, of course, perspectives and implications in the fields of religion and society as well. The origins of life on Earth are still a subject of debate today among creationists, evolutionists and theorists of all sorts. A not insignificant number of people try to do more or less serious research on an extraterrestrial origin of the human species. Another not insignificant group of people believes that the Earth is flat (I don't put them on the same level, I just say they are there too).
For Green, ultimately finding alien life in another world would give way to an incredible chaos of new beliefs, life philosophies and conspiracy theories whose impact on society is absolutely unpredictable. The latest news on Mars has been greeted with a mixture of indifference and enthusiasm, but can we say that it has really become mainstream? The world spends time between politicians' tweets and talent shows, but if life on Mars was discovered, music would change a lot.
Maybe he's right
Green may be right: perhaps humanity is not ready to handle the implications of life on Mars, perhaps it needs to be slowly prepared to accept it.
However, science waits for no one, and these NASA discoveries on Mars will sooner or later present us with evidence to deal with.
