Summer has almost arrived here in Sweden. The days are growing longer and warmer. But just a few months ago, the land was covered in cold darkness. I remember one of those last days of winter, when I stumbled over a miracle. I was walking through the woods one afternoon. The air was a few degrees above freezing. Sweden during winter is pretty much like a day at the surface of Mars, and almost as void of life. People look like interplanetary colonists hidden somewhere inside their many layers of clothes. The summer feels as distant as the pale blue star of the Earth, seen in the martian morning sky.
- The little bright dot in the upper right is the Earth seen from Mars. Photo: NASA/JPL
Unlike the Bowie song, the quest for life on Mars is not about dreams of a better place. We know as far as Earth like life is concerned, Mars is dead. What we are hoping for is perhaps some kind of microbe hidden deep underground, or some unequivocal evidence of past life.
The discovery of life on Mars, or anywhere else in the solar system, would fundamentally change our view of the process of life and what biology means. First of all, we would have to expand our biology to contain other lifeforms than terrestrial.
In fact, some scientist believes that there’s a need for this already. In 1976, the Viking lander carried with it equipment to test the martian soil for microbial life. One of four experiments gave a positive result. The implication of those results are controversial and most scientists believe that there’s no need to ascribe the results to biological chemistry. However, the designer of the experiment that gave the positive results, Gilbert Levin, believes the 1976 data to be solid evidence for life. In 2006 a neurobiologist named Mario Crocco proposed that we need to expand the boundaries of our classification of living organisms based on the 1976 Viking data. The organism that triggered the positive results would be called Gillevinia straata, and it’s place in or biological taxonomy would be this:
Organic life system: Solaria
Biosphere: Marciana
Kingdom: Jakobia
Genus and Species: Gillevinia straata
Well, the proposition has been rejected by the scientific community but it is a lovely speculation to consider that when stronger evidence comes, the introduction of such a new interplanetary taxonomy is needed.
Then what became of that last winters day and my miracle? Well, I was walking through the woods when the trees opened up and I found this little frozen pond with rusty water glowing in the sunlight. The first warmth of spring reached down in the water. Under the ice life was stirring.
Now you might say that a little frozen pond in the Swedish countryside isn’t much of a miracle, but what was happening in that pond was a process not necessarily unique to the domains of the Earth. Spring is the return of sunlight, and sunlight is a life-giving force, on the Earth and elsewhere.
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