The Question of Life on Mars Still Intrigues Us

By Nancy Atkinson - July 1, 2011 at 9:01 PM UTC | Astrobiology

QUEST

KQED

Public Media.

Is there -- or was there ever -- life on Mars? And will we ever definitively find out? After multiple unmanned missions to Mars, we still can't answer those questions, but the possibility of life on the Red Planet has intrigued us for decades and our interest in Mars still runs high. Here's a video produced by the PBS affiliate in San Francisco, California,

KQED

and their science and environment series QUEST. It looks at our past fascination of Mars and how NASA scientists are hoping the Mars Science Lab rover will help them solve the mysteries of Mars.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com