Q: NASA?s Curiosity rover was rumored to have found something exciting in Martian soil samples. If there really is ? or was ? life on Mars, what kind of life forms are we talking about?
A: Despite fanciful early descriptions of elaborate “canals” crisscrossing the Martian surface, exhaustive imaging of the Red Planet has revealed no signs of any advanced civilization. Instead, any extraterrestrial life is most likely to be microbial, said UW?Madison geoscientist Clark Johnson.