The Search for Life Continues

If all goes as planned, NASA’s latest rover, Perseverance, will land on Mars on February 18, 2021. Its mission is expected to last for at least one Martian year—that’s nearly two years on earth. The rover is aptly named, as the United States and other nations have persisted in launching numerous missions to Mars since 1965. In fact, more spacecraft have been sent to Mars than to any other planet.

So what makes Mars so important to planetary scientists?

Motivation for Visiting Mars

Given the similarities between Mars and earth, many scientists have long thought that life might exist on the Red Planet. Though only half the size of earth, Mars appears more like earth than any other planet. It has a thin atmosphere and an axial tilt that produces seasons. Mars also has polar ice caps that grow and shrink with the seasons, but the air is too thin and the temperatures are too cold to sustain liquid water.

Spacecraft have shown that harsh conditions make life on Mars extremely unlikely. But the same spacecraft have also revealed that water once flowed on the Martian surface before collecting into seas. This evidence of liquid water means that at one time Mars was much warmer than it is now. Could life have existed on Mars? That tantalizing possibility has galvanized interest in exploring Mars for evidence of life, and many of the instruments aboard Perseverance will do that. For instance, Perseverance has several sophisticated instruments that will perform remote chemical analyses of Martian rock and soil, looking for subtle indicators of past biological activity.

Speculation about life on Mars is based upon evolutionary assumptions that life arose spontaneously through random processes. To evolutionists, planet earth is no different from any other planet. Since earth teems with life, they conclude that Mars should as well. Much of the motivation for sending spacecraft to Mars seems to focus on learning how life might have naturalistically arisen on earth.

Our Marvelous Maker

Targeted Landing Site

The mission’s targeted landing site is located within Jezero Crater, which scientists believe was the location of an ancient river delta. If it reaches this target, Perseverance will explore the crater and travel toward the rim during the course of its mission.

But biblical creationists know that life doesn’t arise by itself. Rather, wherever life exists, we know that God made it. Does the Bible specifically tell us whether life exists or ever existed on Mars? Not in so many words, but from a biblical worldview, we don’t expect to find life there.

Genesis 1:14 tells us that the celestial bodies were created for “signs and for seasons, and for days and years.” Life isn’t needed to carry out that purpose. However, Scripture specifically records that God created earth to be inhabited by living things, including humans who are created in his image (Isaiah 45:18; Genesis 1:27). It’s doubtful that we will ever find intelligent life on another planet (or in a galaxy far, far away) because the Bible says Jesus came to earth to save humans, not alien beings on another planet.

Spacecraft like Perseverance can test our prediction that life has never existed on Mars. But we expect the results to confirm our prediction since our model of creation is grounded in God’s Word. Though we don’t expect to find evidence of little green men (or microscopic bacteria, for that matter), we can eagerly anticipate the new details Perseverance might discover about our red neighbor—a marvelous part of God’s creation

Mission

Perseverance is a 2,200-pound rover specially designed to discover the geology and history of Mars. In its mission to seek signs of ancient life, the rover carries a drill to collect core samples of Martian rock and soil. These samples will be stored in sealed tubes to be retrieved by a future mission and carried back to earth for analysis.

Mars Rover (Click to enlarge)