Q1.
Did Mars ever support life?
Answer
No proof of life has been found — but the question is still open, and that is the honest answer.
What we actually know:
- Mars lies at the edge of the Sun's habitable zone, so it is right at the boundary of where water can stay liquid.
- Several spacecraft have been sent, and rovers have landed and explored the surface. None has found proof of life.
- Scientists do think that in the past Mars may have had liquid water — perhaps even lakes — and conditions that could support simple life forms.
Why it happens: Mars's atmosphere today is about 100 times thinner than Earth's, so surface water cannot stay liquid — it freezes or turns to vapour. Whatever conditions once allowed lakes there have gone. Finding a dry lakebed is evidence of past water, not of past life; life would need a separate kind of evidence.
Tip: Notice how the chapter ends this box — 'science doesn't always have final answers'. Saying 'we do not know yet, and here is what would settle it' is a scientific answer, not a failure to answer.