The Search for Life on Mars

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Mars has long captivated our imaginations as a potential habitat for life in the solar system. With new missions launching from the United States and China, and the European Space Agency's ExoMars mission set for 2022, this book recounts the greatest scientific detective story ever. For the first time in forty years, these missions will actively search for signs of ancient life on Mars. This narrative delves into an age-old quest filled with myths, false starts, red herrings, and both triumphs and failures. Authored by two seasoned journalists in space exploration, it presents a definitive account of how the discovery of life has eluded us and how it might finally be achieved this century. Drawing from over a hundred interviews with experts at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and beyond, the book reflects on early Mars missions like Viking 1 and 2 while emphasizing recent explorations, including Curiosity's search for habitable sites and the Mars Insight lander's recordings of over 450 marsquakes since late 2018. It also anticipates the upcoming Perseverance and ExoMars rover missions, culminating in the thrilling prospect of humans landing on Mars, making it their home, and directly searching for life.