MagAAFSzine January 2019, Issue 8 | Page 11

WRITTEN BY: Jordan Langley

Mars Quotes:

“Unlike previous claims of water-bearing rocks or ephemeral streaks of brine, researchers reported in the Aug. 3 Science that they had found a wide lake of standing liquid near the Red Planet’s south pole, buried beneath 1.5 kilometers of ice (SN: 8/18/18, p. 6). The purported polar pool, spotted by an orbiting satellite, is the largest volume of liquid water ever claimed to currently exist on Mars, and has probably been around for a long time. Both of those features raise hopes that life could survive on Mars today.”

People will want to look for life there and evidence it existed in the past. People have already started searching for life on Mars and have always been sending rovers to Mars. In fact, in 2020, another rover will be sent to the Jezero Crater on Mars to search for evidence of life in the past, as it is an ancient area of Mars. For life to exist, there must be water. On July 25th in 2018, an underground lake of water was discovered just below the surface near Mars’ south polar ice cap. In fact, scientists have discovered what they believe to be the building blocks of life on Mars and think Mars may be suitable for some life forms. Mars’ polar ice caps are made of ice water covered by frozen carbon dioxide.

The discovery of life would prove groundbreaking and would be all over the news, conquering all forms of media. People would learn about how life can survive in environments such as Mars and this discovery would prove that we are not alone.