Is there life on Mars?
CrowdScience
BBC
4.8 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 24 August 2018
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s the central question for the current generation of Mars missions. Since the first close-up pictures of the red planet back in 1965, decades of space missions have revealed our neighbouring planet to be cold, rocky and sterile. But there are hints of a more dramatic past; of raging volcanoes and flash floods. Could this be a planet where life existed? Could life still exist under the surface? And could humans live there, or even travel the distance to get there safely, at some point in the coming decades?
CrowdScience listeners from Australia, Ghana and Canada have been musing on all sorts of Martian matters. Presenter Marnie Chesterton visits a corner of Stevenage, UK, with a distinctly unearthly appearance and takes a virtual tour of the Martian atmosphere. She also puts listeners’ questions to the scientists designing the spacecraft and instruments they hope will unlock the secrets of Mars.
(Image: illustration of Mars shot from space. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of |
| 0:07.0 | Happiness Podcast. |
| 0:08.0 | For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want |
| 0:14.4 | to share that science with you. |
| 0:16.1 | And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley. |
| 0:19.4 | I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that |
| 0:25.4 | calmer place within. Listen on BBC Sounds. This is crowd science from the BBC World Service and this episode is out of this world. |
| 0:41.0 | Thanks to your questions about Mars. Our planet is the third rock |
| 0:46.9 | along from the sun orbiting it every 365 days. Our next neighbor out is the reddish rock called Mars, which on clear |
| 0:57.0 | nights you can see shining in the night sky like a star. Over recent decades a |
| 1:02.3 | succession of scientific missions have revealed this planet in |
| 1:06.0 | increasingly spectacular detail and as we'll hear there's much more to come in the |
| 1:11.6 | next few years. |
| 1:13.0 | This is the program that answers your questions about anything scientific, |
| 1:18.0 | and it turns out that a lot of crowd science listeners |
| 1:21.0 | are really interested in the possibility of Mars as a livable planet, |
| 1:25.7 | both for us and other life forms. |
| 1:28.5 | So over the next half hour I'm going to be finding out what we know and how we know it. There'll be a chance to hear again my trip to Mars on Earth. |
| 1:37.0 | We're standing in front of a giant sand pit. Can we walk in it? |
| 1:41.0 | Yes. |
| 1:42.0 | Yes. He he. |
| 1:43.0 | And we'll catch you up with the very recent Mars news and to help me do that I roped in one of the |
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