Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
It would take a near miracle for there not to be life on Mars.
Mars and Earth have been “swapping spit” for billions of years; anytime either planet is hit by comets or asteroids, some material gets ejected into space, with a tiny fraction of that material eventually landing on the other planet.
If any of Earth’s microbes happen to have been hitch-hiking in that material, then you’ve got potential life on Mars. And we know that life is capable of surviving both the vacuum of space, and a simulated Martian environment in a lab.
And we know that Mars didn’t used to be the dry, arid world it is today. Water once flowed on Mars back before it lost its atmosphere to space.
And yet we still haven’t found any direct evidence for life on Mars. Or have we? Because 50 years ago this month, one of the experiments on NASA’s Viking lander that was designed to search for signs of life returned a positive result. It’s just that other experiments on Viking returned a negative result.
The next few years saw arguments go back and forth in the scientific research papers, could the results be explained by just chemistry, or whether you needed biology, whether you needed life to explain them.
Video filmed on a Sony ⍺7 IV
Video edited by Martino Gasparrini: martino.freelance@gmail.com
Video produced by Marina Hui & Dr Becky Smethurst
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📚 My book, "A Brief History of Black Holes", out NOW in hardback, paperback, e-book and audiobook (which I narrated myself!): lnk.to/DrBecky
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👕 My merch, including JWST designs, are available here (with worldwide shipping!): dr-becky.teemill.com
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🎧 Royal Astronomical Society Podcast that I co-host: podfollow.com/supermassive
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🔔 Don't forget to subscribe and click the little bell icon to be notified when I post a new video!
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👩🏽💻 I'm Dr. Becky Smethurst, an astrophysicist at the University of Oxford. I love making videos about science with an unnatural level of enthusiasm. I like to focus on how we know things, not just what we know. And especially, the things we still don't know. If you've ever wondered about something in space and couldn't find an answer online - you can ask me! My day job is to do research into how supermassive black holes can affect the galaxies that they live in. In particular, I look at whether the energy output from the disk of material orbiting around a growing supermassive black hole can stop a galaxy from forming stars.
drbecky.uk.com
It would take a near miracle for there not to be life on Mars.
Mars and Earth have been “swapping spit” for billions of years; anytime either planet is hit by comets or asteroids, some material gets ejected into space, with a tiny fraction of that material eventually landing on the other planet.
If any of Earth’s microbes happen to have been hitch-hiking in that material, then you’ve got potential life on Mars. And we know that life is capable of surviving both the vacuum of space, and a simulated Martian environment in a lab.
And we know that Mars didn’t used to be the dry, arid world it is today. Water once flowed on Mars back before it lost its atmosphere to space.
And yet we still haven’t found any direct evidence for life on Mars. Or have we? Because 50 years ago this month, one of the experiments on NASA’s Viking lander that was designed to search for signs of life returned a positive result. It’s just that other experiments on Viking returned a negative result.
The next few years saw arguments go back and forth in the scientific research papers, could the results be explained by just chemistry, or whether you needed biology, whether you needed life to explain them.
Video filmed on a Sony ⍺7 IV
Video edited by Martino Gasparrini: martino.freelance@gmail.com
Video produced by Marina Hui & Dr Becky Smethurst
---
📚 My book, "A Brief History of Black Holes", out NOW in hardback, paperback, e-book and audiobook (which I narrated myself!): lnk.to/DrBecky
---
👕 My merch, including JWST designs, are available here (with worldwide shipping!): dr-becky.teemill.com
---
🎧 Royal Astronomical Society Podcast that I co-host: podfollow.com/supermassive
---
🔔 Don't forget to subscribe and click the little bell icon to be notified when I post a new video!
---
👩🏽💻 I'm Dr. Becky Smethurst, an astrophysicist at the University of Oxford. I love making videos about science with an unnatural level of enthusiasm. I like to focus on how we know things, not just what we know. And especially, the things we still don't know. If you've ever wondered about something in space and couldn't find an answer online - you can ask me! My day job is to do research into how supermassive black holes can affect the galaxies that they live in. In particular, I look at whether the energy output from the disk of material orbiting around a growing supermassive black hole can stop a galaxy from forming stars.
drbecky.uk.com
