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Asked by 353merf39 to Angus, Catherine, Jenni, Melissa, Waqar on 19 Jun 2016. This question was also asked by Green632.
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Angus Cook answered on 19 Jun 2016:
We don’t know yet!
From what I’ve managed to keep track of as the discoveries have come in, we’re quite confident that Mars USED to have liquid water on its surface, and there are also recent observations of changes in the landscape with might suggest that there’s still some kind of effect of water on the geology of Mars.
One of the main focuses of the missions we send to Mars it to try and sample the rocks and soil (you probably can’t call it ‘earth’ if it’s on another planet…) to see if we can get any more information on Mars’ history and composition, to see if we can detect if life USED to be present on Mars.
At a guess I’d say that if there were life on Mars, it’d be microbial (small like bacteria). There doesn’t seem to be enough living matter on the surface (none that we’ve found) to support complex life. I’d guess that (again, if there is life) anything we’d find would be under the surface, and microbial in nature.
As with everything though, I’d be happy to be proved wrong, especially with this 🙂
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Melissa Ladyman answered on 20 Jun 2016:
I agree with Angus. I think it’s quite probable that there is simple life out there somewhere. That might even be where life on Earth came from originally. Whether or not there is simple life still on Mars- I guess we’ll have to keep looking for evidence.
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