The NASA physicist believes next year’s Mars 2020 mission will be the first to unearth evidence of alien life on Mars. The NASA Mars 2020 mission, which launches in July 2020, will send the next generation of robotic explorers to the Red Planet. NASA’s mission will coincide with the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) own ExoMars rover that will also drill into Mars. But when the monumental discovery is finally made, Dr Jim Green warned the world might not be ready for it.
The NASA scientist told the Sunday Telegraph: “It will be revolutionary. It’s like when Copernicus stated ‘no we go around the Sun’.
“Completely revolutionary. It will start a whole new line of thinking.”
He added: “I’ve been worried about that because I think we’re close to finding it and making some announcements.”
The Mars 2020 rover is pencilled in for a launch window of July 17, 2020, to August 5, 2020.
But the lonely rover will not reach the Red Planet until February 2021, after which it will begin to explore Mars.
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ESA’s mission will follow a similar trajectory and drill about 6.5t into Martian rock.
Although the Red Planet today is a barren desert devoid of life, Mars once boasted a thick and humid atmosphere.
Dr Green said: “The bottom line is, where there is water there is life.”
At some point in the planet’s history, Mars lost most of its magnetosphere, which resulted in solar radiation stripping the planet of its lush atmosphere.
But in “extreme environments” like those on Mars, Dr Green is certain microbial live “moves into rocks”.
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He said: “We have gone in nuclear cesspools, places where you’d think nothing could survive.
“We go two miles deep into the Earth and if they were weeping with water they were full of life.”
NASA’s Mars 2020 rover will collect samples of rock and soil, which will be left behind on Mars for future missions to retrieve.
The process, dubbed “sample caching” will see the Mars 2020 rover store rock samples in protective tubes.
According to NASA, the mission will be the first to demonstrate the ability to retrieve such samples.
