Phoenix was to search for frozen water under the surface. ibid.
Although the droplets on its leg remain a mystery, when Phoenix’s robot arm dug a few centimetres under the Martian surface it confirmed a prediction: it hit hard icy soil containing frozen water. ibid.
Something else the lander’s laser found in the Martian sky – snow. ibid.
Silica ... An accidental discovery but it raises the question, Could Mars have current underground thermal activity? ibid.
It’s the first definitive lake-shore discovered on Mars. The remains of a lake the size of North America’s Lake Champlain. ibid.
Whatever water is on Mars evaporates or freezes. In the third quarter of its history Mars probably begins turning red from ferrous oxide – rust in the dust. ibid.
From a warmer wetter planet to a cold dry world. ibid.
These 2009 satellite pictures seem to show something impossible – flowing liquid water on the surface. ibid.
The search for water and life on Mars is a continuing quest. ibid.
Like the nineteenth century canals and the twentieth century face, the Martian Yeti is a twenty-first century trick of the light. ibid.
But how did Mars lose its magnetic field? ibid.
The Martian methane could be coming from underground colonies of bacteria. ibid.
How can you survive a crash landing on Mars? The Universe s6e4: Crash Landing on Mars
Mars lost its magnetic field four billion years ago. ibid.
At the dawn of the twenty-first century space agencies in Europe and America began making plans to land the first humans on Mars. Mars: The Next Frontier
For the past fifteen years [Robert] Zubrin and his colleagues have waged a campaign to convince society and the political class that humans on Mars should be the goal for NASA now. ibid.
But Mars Direct’s time seemed to have passed. Then a new administration came into power at NASA. They challenged Zubrin to prove rocket fuel could be produced on Mars. And he did. ibid.
Tom van Flandern ... He has on his website, pictures of artefacts on Mars’s surface that I’ve never seen before. He’s got pictures – actual zoomed-in pictures ... of cylinders on the face of Mars going into the earth, coming into Mars and coming out. They’re like a subway system. And it’s like plastic or glass. And you can see the wrappings around, some kind of material wrapped around these cylinders ... It looks like a subway system! Jordan Maxwell, lecture The Illuminati
So life could form on Mars; there’s nothing there preventing it. We do have the basic building blocks. Professor William Boynton, University of Arizona
Mars is a better candidate for life in the early part of the solar system. Mars rocks are coming here all the time. Dr Paul Davies
Mars is worshipped as the god Thor, influencing warfare, earthquakes and plague. Chris Everard, Spirit World II
Mariner 4 changed everything. There was enough there to see no canals, no civilisations, no little green men. For the popular world to see that whole Martian empire smashed was a big moment. Stephen Fentress, director Strausenberg Planetarium
Originating during the science-fiction/Red-Scare boom of the ’50s Invaders From Mars is an entertaining little picture that holds up reasonably well. Patrick Legare, film critic
Radio Listeners in Panic, Taking War Drama as Fact: Many Flee Homes to Escape ‘Gas Raid From Mars’ – Phone Calls Swamp Police at Broadcast of Well Fantasy. The New York Times 31st October 1938
Mars has long been the focus of the search for life in the solar system. In 2008 NASA’s Phoenix lander found water-ice in the Martian Arctic. Are We Alone? 2009
Today Rock 84-001 speaks to us across all those billions of years and millions of miles. If this discovery is confirmed, it will surely be one of the most stunning insights into our universe that science has ever uncovered. Bill Clinton
LAH84-001 seemed to contain microscopic fossils of ancient Martian bacteria. Cosmic Collisions: Solar System
With surface temperatures dropping to well below 100 degrees Celsius, dangerously high levels of radiation, and these dust devils ripping across the surface, conditions on the Red Planet are extremely harsh. The Cosmos: A Beginner’s Guide, BBC 2007
Mars is the grand prize of the solar system. It’s the closest planet on which human beings can settle. It’s the closest planet that has all the resources needed for life and civilisation. Robert Zubrin, president Mars Society
As a place for settlement Mars is a much better place to go. Robert Zubrin
Going to Mars and taking measurements on the surface and getting detailed data about the history of Mars and Mars’ chemistry of the surface was an essential piece to determining for sure whether water existed on Mars. Laura Danly, Griffith Observatory
We know there were big volcanoes in the past. Laura Danly
This is Mars. The Red Planet. Fourth rock out from the sun it has a canyon so vast it could fit our own Grand Canyon into one of its side-channels. Brian Cox, Wonders of the Solar System: Dead or Alive, BBC 2010
This is Olympus Mons. Named after Mount Olympus. The mythical home of the Greek gods. This vast outpouring of lava stretches over 550 kilometres across. But it’s the height of this volcano that is breathtaking ... It is the highest mountain we know. ibid.
So large deposits of gypsum on the surface of Mars tells you there must have been big areas of water present for a very long time. Brian Cox, Wonders of the Solar System s1e5: Aliens, BBC 2010
Our planetary neighbour Mars is a cold barren rock. Its rusted surface covered in parched sand. But beneath the dust the planet bears the scars of former life. Billions of years ago Mars was just like Earth. A world with a thick atmosphere that supported oceans of water. But today that world is gone. Mars lies dead while the Earth thrives. Brian Cox, The Planets II: Terra Firma, BBC 2019
The Viking programme took us down to the ground for the first time. ibid.
A new generation of aircraft has been sent to Mars to investigate the existence of water. ibid.
Mars formed in a region of the solar system with considerably less rocky material and that had a profound impact on the planet’s growth. ibid.
Jezero Crater is one of the most important and enigmatic sites in the solar system. Around 3.8 billion years ago it was filled with a lake. But that lake is long gone. Mars had become a dry and barren world. Today, Perseverance and the Ingenuity helicopter are searching the crater for signs of the life that may once have lived there. Brian Cox, Seven Days on Mars, BBC 2022
To me what makes Mars special is its potential as an abode for life. Steve Squyres, Cornell University
Visit the moon of Mars – there’s a monolith there, a very unusual structure. Buzz Aldrin, interview C-Span
Mars is there, waiting to be reached. Buzz Aldrin: Down to Earth, Psychology Today May/June 2001
The tenacity of life on Earth has radically altered our view of where alien life might arise. The discovery of water along with carbon, methane and hydrogen on the red planet means Mars has the building blocks of life. And the controversial Mars meteorite discovered in 1996 reveals structures that might be fossilised microbes. Hunt for Aliens, National Geographic 2010
The evidence that Mars used to have a magnetic field lies in the crystal rocks. Alex Filippenko
We have actually found meteorites here on Earth that are undeniably from Mars – about fifty of them known. Alex Filippenko