NASA’s Curiosity rover has once again excited scientists with some provocative discoveries about Mars.
Curiosity drove over a Martian rock and broke it open, exposing a dazzling white exterior. The striking ivory color indicates the presence of hydrated minerals in the rock. As any person who walks around with a water bottle knows, “hydration” requires water, and hydrated minerals are those that are formed when water is found. Curiosity also has detected clay-type minerals in a different rock — another clue suggesting the presence of water at some point. These discoveries are part of a growing body of evidence that running water once existed on this part of the surface of Mars.
On Earth, water seems to have been a crucial building block in whatever process, or outside force, first created life. If water flowed on the Red Planet, the odds are increased that life once existed there — and may exist there still. Although the surface of Mars is now a dusty red desert, it is possible that water and ice remain in rock formations deep below the Martian surface. If so, life may be found there, because studies on Earth indicate that life, once established, is remarkably hardy. The expedition to drill into a lake buried beneath a two-mile thick sheet of ice in Antartica, for example, recently uncovered life forms even in that dark, desolate, and inhospitable location. Why should life on Mars be any less tenacious?
I’m of the Star Trek generation. I believe that looking for — and especially finding — life beyond the confines of our home planet is a good way to get squabbling humans to recognize that their differences are minor and not worthy of much attention in the grand scheme of things. We need to move beyond a mindset that focuses exclusively on our own fleeting creature comforts and recognize that we live in but one tiny, wayward corner of an unimaginably vast universe. It’s been 40 years since humans walked on the Moon. When will we take the next step, to Mars and beyond, to see whether life in fact may be found elsewhere?
But perhaps there’s still a chance for 50-something space traveler wannabes like me. 
Scientists say there is 
So far, scientists have discovered and confirmed the existence of more than 800 planets. Most of the planets, however, are huge gas giants, like Jupiter or Saturn in our solar system. The 
These kind of astronomical events are very cool, because they happen so rarely. There’s a “music of the spheres” sort of celestial harmony to Venus’ journey that reflects a special, highly unusual confluence of positioning of the Sun, Venus, and Earth. It won’t happen again for 105 years. By then, we hope, the European debt crisis will have been resolved. In fact, some astrologers are saying that the transit of Venus might help to solve such problems. It’s is supposed to 
Using new techniques, scientists have identified many apparently habitable planets, thereby suggesting that the first ingredient of extraterrestrial intelligence — a planet where a sophisticated alien race might develop — is much more common than people once thought. Studies have shown that life has developed and thrived in the most inhospitable climates on Earth, from superhot underseas vents to the coldest ice caves at our poles. And now, 
The study looked at the dispersion of debris from asteroid impacts on the Earth’s surface. It found that such debris is far more likely to reach Mars, or even Jupiter and Saturn and their moons, than was previously thought. If such debris contained small life forms, they therefore could have reached other places that are capable of sustaining life. Of course, any microbes and other organisms on the debris would have to be hardy enough to survive years of travel through space, exposure to radiation, the fall to the surface of another planet, and the different atmospheres and living conditions on those planets — but we know that there are organisms that can survive such conditions, and we also know that life is tenacious and is found in even the most hostile and extreme climates on Earth.
In an article published in the 
Scientists need to confirm that the suspected planets are, in fact, planets, but their speculation based on the findings to date is that there may be as many as 100 million habitable planets in the Milky Way galaxy.
