sms?Little Green Men or Just Little Microscopic Organisms?The question of life on Mars is a puzzle that has plagued many mindsthroughout the world. Life on Mars, though, is a reality.
When you think ofMartians, you think of little green men who are planning to invade Earth anddestroy all human life, right? Well, some do and some do not. Though believingthat there are little green men on Mars is just a fantasy, or is it? The kindof life that may have lived there is the kind you would never consider of givingthe name “Martian” to. They are small organisms such as microbes or bacteria. Proof of this was found in a meteorite containing the fossils of themicroscopic organisms intact.
Two highly regarded chemistry professors fromStanford, Claude Maechling and Richard Zare, dissected three meteorites thatwere about 2 to 8 millimeters long and found trace elements of a big mumbo jumboword polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. That pretty much means that there oncewas a warmer climate and maybe even lakes or oceans. Life on Mars is now a realidea. The climate of Mars about 3.
8 billion years ago was much similar to theyoung Earth. Microbes and bacteria probably sprouted everywhere in the warm andwet climate. Although now we only see a cold red planet, which was probably dueto a collision of an astroid that would have set back the evolution process ofMars, causing it to be a harsh planet. A Viking spacecraft which landed on Marsin 1976 found that the planet was bathed in ultraviolet radiation, “intenseenough so it would probably fry any microbe we know on this planet,”says JackFarmer, an Ames researcher who calls himself an “exopaleontologist”a searcherfor fossils on other worlds.
The redness of Mars is due to the chemical assaultknown as oxidation, which turns iron compounds into rust, and it would surelykill anything that sticks its head up. “So why do you still believe that there is life on Mars?” you say. Lifeon Mars is not located on the ultraviolet radiation oxidized surface. Themicrobes are found below it, probably located in the boiling hot springs, or infrozen time capsules. Life here on Earth are located in some strange places sowhy wouldn’t the Martian microbes be found in strange places if they were tryingto survive’scientists have found bacteria here on Earth that were livinginside rocks where they got all of their nourishment from the rocks and fromsome water. Martians probably do the same thing.
The Marsokhod, which is Russian for “Mars Rover” a six-wheeled vehicleabout the size of a golf cart, with an arm for carrying a camera or otherinstruments, is planned to launch in 1998. The rover might actually find thetruth that there was once life and that there is still life on Mars. Who knows, but what if the once ancient microbes or bacteria haveevolved into little green men who are planning to invade Earth and destroy allhuman life? What if there was a whole colony of Martians in underground tunnelsall over Mars? How did we evolve? From microscopic microbes, right? They mayhave evolved, too. When I read all of this I am reminded by a quote from acharacter on Jurassic Park named Ian Malcolm who said, “Life finds a way. “BibliographyChui, Glennda.
“Life on Mars II”. http://www. sjmercury. com/news/nation/mars.
htm. December 19,1995. Davidson, Keay. “New Signs That There Was Life On Mars.
” San FranciscoExaminer. March16, 1995. Pg. A2. SIRS Physical Science, ElectronicOnly 1995. Art.
104. SIRS Researcher CD-ROM, CD-ROM. SIRS. Fall 1996.
