We’re getting closer. Discovering life on Mars, once a glimmer of a fantasy, is now looking more and more promising. According to geobiologist Jeff Marlow, anywhere on Earth we find liquid water and enough energy, we find life. So the best way to find it on Mars might be to consider what early life on Earth looked like. Microbes, one of the earliest forms of life on Earth, have been found in the most extreme environments, consuming methane gas bubbling up from the bottom of our oceans. Mars, too, has methane, and it might also carry liquid water deep below its surface. Could methane and water be the secret to eventually discovering microbial life on Mars? It certainly looks possible, and we’re closer than ever before.
Marlow joined the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution aboard the Alvin submersible to study methane seeps and microbes, a project funded by the National Science Foundation.
Make sure to learn more about the Alvin submersible.
Read more about making Mars home in the latest issue of
National Geographic magazine and
watch MARS, the global event series premiering Monday, November 14 at 9/8c on National Geographic.
Video courtesy of NASA/JPL and Anne Dekas, Stanford University; Adam Skarke, Mississippi State/NSF/HOV Alvin 2016 ©Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
SERIES PRODUCER: Chris Mattle
PRODUCER/EDITOR: Katy Daily
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Jared M. Gair
