As NASA prepares to set twin robots loose on the Martian
surface and makes plans to send another in 2007, the agency’s long term goal is
clear: determine whether the red planet does or ever did harbor life.
But the current search for life is necessarily limited to life as we know
it, organisms dependent on liquid water. A SPACE.com reader recently suggested
that "We as humans are arrogant, simply believing that any other form of life
will be just like us." Researchers devoted to the search for
extraterrestrial (ET) have a similar view. "Scientists’ approach to finding life
is very Earth-centric," says Kenneth Nealson, a geobiologist at the University
of Southern California. "Based on what we know about life on Earth, we set the
limits for where we might look on other planets," Nealson said. Within that
framework, however, there are extreme cases of life on Earth that suggest the
range of places to look on frigid Mars. Nealson and his
colleagues recently found the most extreme sort of organism in a salty liquid
lake under the permafrost of Siberia. The organism, named cryopegella, can exist
at colder temperatures than any previously discovered. Nealson’s team figures
that if the ice at the polar caps of Mars warmed to liquid water, organisms like
cryopegella could have awakened and repaired any damage that might have occurred
to their various cellular components. That does not mean there are necessarily
dormant microbes within the ice caps of Mars. But it does suggest a broader
range of potential cradles for life. Other researchers agree,
and a host of so-called "extremophile" discoveries on Earth in recent years
indicate the polar regions of Mars might be prime hunting grounds. As on Earth,
organisms there might be slathered in natural antifreeze or be able to go
dormant for tens of thousands of years, waiting for a brief thaw, their moment
in the Sun. Meanwhile, scientists recognize that there could
indeed be life elsewhere in the universe that does not require water. And some
astrobiologists are trying to explore the possibilities. But it is a tough
problem to approach. In looking for "life as we don’t know it," it’s hard to
even imagine what to expect. Life might or might not exist on
Mars. If there are critters there, they might or might not be like bacteria on
Earth. In laboratory conditions, scientists in 2001 were able to get one-celled
organisms to incorporate an amino acid—a fundamental building block of life—that
no other known life uses. The discovery borders on the creation of artificial
life, experts said. It also suggests that ET might operate by entirely different
rules than those we’re used to. If life on Mars is
fundamentally different from what scientists understand life to be, then current
spacecraft and others in the works may well not recognize what’s right under
their mechanical noses. What is the best title of the passage
A. Does Mars Harbor Life
B. If We Find ET, Will We Know It
C. Will the Twin Robots Live Up to Us
D. Why Search ET As We Don’t Know It