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Asked by boggitgirl to Hannah, Lucy, Phil, rochellevelho, Stephen on 8 Mar 2017. This question was also asked by 829spah24, Lucy_C_DJS.
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Phil Sutton answered on 8 Mar 2017:
Without being the Mars expert my understanding is that there has and may still be conditions suitable for some fairly primitive types of life on Mars. In 1996 there were claims that a fossilised microbial form of life had been found on a Martian meteorite. The debate for life on Mars is still strong as its not an easy one to prove or disprove.
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Lucy Kissick answered on 9 Mar 2017:
It ‘s difficult to say. Mars did have Earth-like conditions at the same time when Earth was developing life (<3.7 billion years ago), which raises the question 'Why wouldn't Mars have life?'. But there were so many chances for life to get going on Earth – a sustained, thick atmosphere to protect from UV and meteors, geothermal heat, liquid water on the surface – but Mars started to freeze and dry up around 3.5 billion years ago. Perhaps life did begin on Mars – maybe in lots of isolated crater lakes – but it never had time to evolve much.
There probably isn't present-day life on Mars: it's been so cold and dry and acidic for so long that life would really struggle. But there is water deep in the crust and some remnant heat; it's not impossible life could survive deep down.
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Hannah Sargeant answered on 12 Mar 2017:
I think there is a good chance there was once life on Mars, because many people think there was flowing water. But now it would be difficult for there to be life on Mars but we will keep looking. The problem is that there are rules about protecting places that might have life so we can’t land there!
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