Life on Mars?

University of Arizona scientists think they’ll find life on Mars, or at least evidence it was once there, after the Phoenix mission lands there in May 2008.

It would be the first discovery of life beyond the Earth in the universe, a university spokespersons said in Green Valley Friday.

College spokesperson Bob Logan said the Phoenix probe is expected to find water on Mars and in it scientists think there’ll be microbial life or its remains.

“Follow the water,” is the watchword of Peter Smith, principal investigator for the Phoenix mission, said Logan. Smith is a researcher and professor in the Department of Space Sciences.

Smith and other scientists say there’s a high probability of life on Mars.

Logan, chief fundraiser for the College of Science, told an audience of about 25 that the search for life is one of several notable ventures on going in the college.

The Phoenix space probe will land on Mars in about 16 months near the polar ice cap. It will dig six to eight inches into the surface where water is thought to be, maybe minute traces mixed in the soil.

A tiny on-board Phoenix lab will analyze what it finds— hopefully microbacterial specimens.

More than a hope is driving these scientists. Wherever there’s water here, there’s life they say.

“If there’s water there, there must be life,” Logan quoted some of the scientists.

There’s no water on Mars now, but two other missions there have found evidence of it, including pictures of where it once flowed in canyons and stood in shallow lakes billions of years ago.

Logan said Phoenix won’t send its samples back to Earth, only the data.

There are 13 academic departments, some with laboratories, within the UA’s College of Science.

Besides educating students, they’re trying to find answers and solutions to many of the world’s problems.

In a new venture, the college plans to take over Biosphere 2 northeast of Tucson for detailed studies of water.

Scientists will look at how rain falls, what really happens to it, how much reaches the groundwater table and how much flies away as mist or evaporation.

Spokesperson Logan said it’s something of a gamble since the multimillion-dollar project and tourist attraction was a bust. It lost money and other academic institutions pulled out.

The 11 departments in the College of Science include astronomy and the Steward Observatory.

The next free lecture in the series will be 10 a.m., Feb. 23 at Desert Hills Center.

jlamb@gvnews.com | 547-9749