But Is It Alive?

When my age was in the single digits and I was in early elementary school we had different ideas about Mars. The dark spots that changed through the martian year were commonly believed to be vegetation in old sea beds and serious science books suggested this. We now know that it is dark rocks under light sand and that the sand shifts back and forth with seasonal winds.

We searched for life on Mars with Viking and the test was inconclusive at the time.

Now some people see all sorts of stuff on Mars, including (the no-longer-inexplicable) face and a few other things and most of it has turned up to be nothing odd at all. Yet one picture does seem odd to me.


The story of this picture along with some possible explanations can be found here. The section is four pages long and you need to read most of it to get the entire story. He suggests they could be odd mountains or dunes and offers similar pictures of earth from orbit. Still the writer suggests that he too believes these pictures could possibly be something alive. Mars has surprised us over and over again, and it may have some more surprises. It would have to be quite different from life here if it is alive because it would have to be surviving in an environment that no terrestrial life could survive in.