It may sound surprising, but life on Mars might have been found 50 years ago. Unfortunately, it could have been accidentally destroyed, says a professor who studies space life. Dirk Schulze-Makuch, a teacher at a university in Berlin, thinks we might have been lucky in finding alien life on Mars, but we might have unintentionally killed it.
Before the Curiosity rover, NASA sent two missions to Mars in the 1970s. These missions, called the Viking program, showed us the first pictures of Mars. They also checked the soil to see if there were any signs of life. The pictures they sent back looked a lot like places on Earth with water, like the Hawaiian volcanoes and slopes that rain fell on.
The missions also found tiny bits of chemicals, like the ones we use to clean swimming pools. At first, scientists thought these chemicals came from Earth. But later, other missions showed that Mars has similar chemicals. One experiment in the Viking program added water to the Martian dirt with some food and special carbon. Scientists wanted to see if tiny creatures on Mars would eat the food and release carbon gas. The first test worked, but they weren't sure what it meant.
Schulze-Makuch thinks that maybe we gave these possible Martian creatures too much water, and they couldn't survive.
He explained it like this: "Imagine if aliens found you in a desert, and they thought you needed water. So, they put you in the middle of the ocean to help you. But that wouldn't work for you, right?"
For a long time, people have wanted to find life on Mars to learn more about other planets and maybe live there someday. The Perseverance rover is driving around Mars right now. It's trying to find more clues about Mars. In a few years, another machine will be sent to Mars to collect rocks and bring them back to Earth.
But it's important to be careful. We might find signs of life, and we don't want to accidentally hurt it like we might have done before.
So, the story of finding life on Mars and then maybe losing it shows how tricky it is to explore other planets. Our curiosity to learn more about space needs to be balanced with care so that we don't harm any possible alien friends we might find.
