Lyfe, but not as we know it…

NASA’s 2020 Perseverance Rover Mission has set off on a mission to find signs of historic life on Mars. The mission has given new urgency to the debate about what constitutes life, and whether our limited experience means we may be looking for it in the wrong places. Since we are only familiar with the Earthly variety, our search might be like that of a blinkered traveller who believes food is only found where there are golden arches.

While the 1976 Viking landers were looking for living bacteria in the soils – and some argue that they may have found) – Perseverance’s mission is much less optimistic. The goal this time is to find fossils, on the assumption that life on Mars is likely to be extinct because the surface is now so hostile. This is why Jezero Crater has been selected as the landing site: NASA scientists believe that over three billion years ago the crater was filled with water, and the crater lake may have been home to all sorts of aquatic life. Deposits of carbonate minerals around the crater rim – “like a bathtub ring,” as NASA’s description has it – suggest that this may be a rich hunting ground for the fossilised remains of seashells, corals and other creatures which incorporate minerals into their body structure.