Life’s essential ingredient

OUR OPINION
Published: August 7, 2008

It’s official. There is water on Mars!

The Phoenix Mars mission had spied evidence of water from a distance previously, but last week, the Phoenix Mars lander was actually able to analyze a sample of Martian soil and detect water.

“Big deal,” you say. “We didn’t need to travel millions of miles to another planet to find water. It’s all around us here on Earth!”

But it is a big deal. Water is an essential ingredient for life to exist on a planet.

And as far as we have known, the Earth is one of the only planets that has the conditions that would make life possible.

But the discovery of water on Mars means that its possible that Mars could have conditions that could harbor life.

Now, that’s not to say that there are Martians — little green men — on Mars. Life comes in all shapes and sizes, from simple, one-celled organisms, to the
variety of human beings we see all around us. So, the existence of water just means that life is possible.

But the discovery of water on Mars means even more. There are countless planets pervading the universe, and the discovery of water on Mars raises the possibility of the existence of water on other, yet undiscovered, planets.

And the possibility of water raises, yet again, the idea that there could be life on other planets. And it could be simple or it could be complex, but what that would mean is that we are not alone.

And that is a thought that has been stirring the human mind for centuries. So, let’s celebrate the confirmed discovery of water on Mars. It sparks the
imagination and makes the universe seem just a little less foreign.