Life on Mars? That's the question facing the NASA team responsible for putting together the objectives for 2020 rover mission to Mars. "We're still on the quest to answer the grand question: Is there life somewhere else in the universe?" John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for science, told reporters Tuesday in a teleconference. Previous missions to Mars have found definitive signs that water once flowed in a crater and rock samples that show signs of clay minerals. "We really needed to go back to the surface, and go to the next stage. ... Did Mars ever have life?" Grunsfeld said as he previewed a 160-page report prepared by the Mars 2020 Science Definition Team, a group assembled by NASA to outline the objectives of the mission. The 2020 rover mission to Mars is considered essential to meeting President Barack Obama's challenge to send a manned mission to the planet in the 2030s. Among the objectives of the 2020 rover mission will be the search for signs of life, the collection of samples to possibly be returned to Earth and testing technology that may allow for a manned mission to Mars. "We want to be able to seek signs of life: Had life been there, did it leave a mark?" said Jack Mustard, a member of the development team and a chair and professor of geological sciences at Brown University. Read more http://www.weatherwatch.co.nz/content/2020-mission-mars-find-signs-life-nasa-says
