Scientists at NASA recently announced that they had found “the clearest sign of life” that has ever been discovered on Mars. The “potential biosignature” of ancient microbial life was found in a Martian rock sample. But to find out if it really is a sign of life, the sample needs to be brought back to Earth for further study—a task far more complicated than you might expect.
Host: Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor. Guests: Katie Stack Morgan of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory; Sanjeev Gupta of Imperial College London; and The Economist’s Oliver Morton.
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