Lecture 27: Is There Life on Mars?
Is there life on Mars? We begin with a brief historical survey of the \nidea of inhabitable Mars, from Herschel to Lowell, and look at how the \nidea of Mars and Martians is deeply embedded in the popular culture. \nWe then turn to spacecraft explorations of Mars, and how they have changed \nour view of the Red planet. We will discuss the on-going search of Martian \nlife, past and present, particularly the Viking 1 and 2 experiments, the \nAllan Hills Meteorite controversy, Mars Methane, and recent important \nresults from the Phoenix lander. We'll end by briefly noting future \ndirections in Mars exploration. \nRecorded live on 2009 Nov 2 in Room 1005 Smith\nLaboratory on the Columbus campus of The Ohio State University.