Dava Newman: Life on Mars and Beyond

00:00:00.000 | - Again, maybe a romanticized philosophical question,

00:00:04.600 | but when you look up at the stars,

00:00:06.620 | knowing that there's at least 100 billion of them

00:00:12.800 | in the Milky Way galaxy, right?

00:00:14.360 | So we're really a small speck in this giant thing

00:00:18.680 | that's the visible universe.

00:00:20.540 | How does that make you feel about our efforts here?

00:00:24.240 | - I love the perspective.

00:00:25.440 | I love that perspective.

00:00:26.720 | I always open my public talks

00:00:28.600 | to the big Hubble Space Telescope image

00:00:30.680 | looking out into, you mentioned just now,

00:00:32.200 | the solar system, the Milky Way.

00:00:33.760 | 'Cause I think it's really important to know

00:00:35.960 | that we're just a small pale blue dot.

00:00:37.820 | We're really fortunate.

00:00:38.760 | We're on the best planet by far.

00:00:40.640 | Life is fantastic here. - That we know of.

00:00:43.160 | You're confident this is the best planet.

00:00:45.000 | - I'm pretty sure it's the best planet,

00:00:46.360 | the best planet that we know of.

00:00:47.720 | I mean, I search my research as you know,

00:00:49.560 | in mission worlds, and when will we find life?

00:00:51.960 | I think actually in probably the next decade,

00:00:54.160 | we find probably past life,

00:00:55.720 | probably the evidence of past life on Mars, let's say.

00:00:58.520 | - You think there was once life on Mars?

00:01:01.240 | Or do you think there's currently?

00:01:03.600 | - I'm more comfortable saying probably 3.5 billion years ago

00:01:07.120 | feel pretty confident there was life on Mars

00:01:08.840 | just because then it had an electromagnetic shield,

00:01:11.480 | it had an atmosphere, has a wonderful gravity level,

00:01:14.720 | 3 Hg is fantastic.

00:01:16.440 | You know, you're all super human,

00:01:18.280 | we can all slam dunk a basketball.

00:01:19.720 | I mean, it's gonna be fun to play sports on Mars.

00:01:22.520 | So I think we'll find past,

00:01:24.080 | no fossilized probably the evidence of past life on Mars.

00:01:27.340 | Currently, that's again, we need the next decade,

00:01:29.400 | but the evidence is mounting for sure.

00:01:31.520 | We do have the organics, we're finding organics,

00:01:33.800 | we have water, seasonal water on Mars.

00:01:36.320 | We used to just know about the ice caps,

00:01:38.600 | you know, North and South Pole.

00:01:39.520 | Now we have seasonal water.

00:01:41.120 | We do have the building blocks for life on Mars.

00:01:44.240 | We really need to dig down into the soil

00:01:46.480 | 'cause everything on the top surface is radiated.

00:01:48.440 | But once we find down, will we see any life forms?

00:01:51.960 | Will we see any bugs?

00:01:52.800 | I leave it open as a possibility,

00:01:55.120 | but I feel pretty certain that past life

00:01:57.300 | or fossilized life forms we'll find.

00:01:59.900 | And then we have to get to all these ocean worlds,

00:02:02.260 | these beautiful moons of other planets

00:02:05.320 | since we know they have water

00:02:06.540 | and we're looking for simple search for life,

00:02:10.420 | for follow the water, you know, carbon-based life.

00:02:12.540 | That's the only life we know.

00:02:13.900 | There could be other life forms that we don't know about,

00:02:15.600 | but it's hard to search for them 'cause we don't know.

00:02:17.620 | So in our search for life in the solar system

00:02:20.080 | is definitely, you know, search, you know,

00:02:21.940 | let's follow the water

00:02:23.220 | and look for the building blocks of life.

00:02:25.140 | - So you think in the next decade,

00:02:26.380 | we might see hints of past life or even current life?

00:02:29.260 | - I think so.

00:02:30.100 | That's pretty optimistic. - I love the optimism.

00:02:31.740 | - I'm pretty optimistic.

00:02:32.580 | - Do humans have to be involved

00:02:33.940 | or can this be robots and rovers and--

00:02:36.540 | - Probably teams.

00:02:37.380 | I mean, we've been at it on Mars in particular 50 years.

00:02:39.740 | We've been exploring Mars for 50 years.

00:02:41.740 | Great data, right?

00:02:42.620 | Our images of Mars today are phenomenal.

00:02:44.900 | Now we know how Mars lost its atmosphere.

00:02:47.180 | You know, we're starting to know

00:02:48.200 | because of the lack of the electromagnet shield.

00:02:51.020 | We know about the water on Mars.

00:02:52.020 | So we've been studying 50 years with our robots.

00:02:54.580 | We still haven't found it.

00:02:55.540 | So I think once we have a human mission there,

00:02:57.780 | we just accelerate things.

00:02:58.900 | It's always humans and our rovers and robots together,

00:03:02.420 | but we just have to think that 50 years

00:03:03.820 | we've been looking at Mars and taking images

00:03:06.900 | and doing the best science that we can.

00:03:08.980 | People need to realize Mars is really far away.

00:03:11.380 | It's really hard to get to.

00:03:12.620 | You know, it's this extreme, extreme exploration.

00:03:15.020 | We mentioned Magellan first

00:03:16.340 | or all of the wonderful explorers and sailors of the past,

00:03:19.380 | which kind of are lots of my inspiration for exploration.

00:03:23.060 | Mars is a different ball game.

00:03:24.500 | I mean, it's eight months to get there,

00:03:26.580 | year and a half to get home.

00:03:28.140 | I mean, it's really extreme.

00:03:29.460 | - Harsh environment in all kinds of ways.

00:03:31.700 | But the kind of organism we might be able to see hints of

00:03:35.260 | on Mars are kind of microorganisms, perhaps.

00:03:38.780 | - Yeah, and remember that humans,

00:03:40.420 | we're kind of, you know, we're hosts, right?

00:03:41.840 | We're hosts to all of our bacteria and viruses, right?

00:03:44.780 | - Do you think it's a big leap from the viruses

00:03:47.900 | and the bacteria to us humans?

00:03:50.980 | Put another way, do you think on all those moons,

00:03:54.420 | beautiful wet moons that you mentioned,

00:03:57.180 | you think there's intelligent life out there?

00:03:59.780 | - I hope so.

00:04:00.620 | I mean, that's the hope,

00:04:01.620 | but, you know, we don't have the scientific evidence

00:04:03.980 | for that now.

00:04:04.940 | I think all the evidence we have in terms of life existing

00:04:08.380 | is much more compelling, again,

00:04:09.920 | 'cause we have the building blocks of life now.

00:04:12.300 | When that life turns into intelligence,

00:04:15.140 | that's a big unknown.

00:04:16.860 | - If we ever meet, do you think we'll be able

00:04:18.740 | to find a common language?

00:04:21.100 | - I hope so.

00:04:21.980 | We haven't met yet.

00:04:23.020 | It's just so far.

00:04:23.900 | I mean, do physics just play a role here?

00:04:25.940 | Look at all these exoplanets, 6,000 exoplanets.

00:04:28.340 | I mean, even the couple dozen Earth-like planets

00:04:30.780 | that are exoplanets that really look like habitable planets.

00:04:34.400 | These are very Earth-like.

00:04:35.420 | They look like they have all the building blocks.

00:04:37.860 | I can't wait to get there.

00:04:38.740 | The only thing is they're 10 to 100 light years away.

00:04:41.740 | So scientifically, we know they're there.

00:04:44.140 | We know that they're habitable.

00:04:45.460 | They have everything going for them, right?

00:04:47.660 | In the Goldilocks zone, not too hot, not too cold,

00:04:50.900 | just perfect for habitability for life.

00:04:54.540 | But now the reality is if they're 10, at the best,

00:04:57.180 | to 100, to thousands of light years away,

00:04:59.640 | so what's out there?

00:05:02.540 | But I just can't think that we're not the only ones.

00:05:04.900 | So absolutely life, life in the universe,

00:05:07.220 | probably intelligent life as well.

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Dava Newman: Life on Mars and Beyond

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