However, after decades of advanced exploration, billions of dollars spent, and the launch of dozens of sophisticated spacecraft and robots, we remain almost at square one in our search for actual life on the Red Planet. We have dispatched sensitive sensors, advanced drilling equipment, and miniature laboratories, all designed to detect the footprints of life. Yet, we have found nothing but profound cosmic silence and a cold, dry expanse. Why? Is Mars truly completely barren? Or have we been looking in the wrong place, or in the wrong way? Is there a hidden secret behind the repeated failures of our missions? Could the secret lie within our methodology itself, in our singular focus on a specific concept of life, particularly on liquid water as a fundamental prerequisite? The enigma of absent life on Mars is an unsolved mystery that continues to baffle scientists.

Let’s pause for a moment. Since serious Mars missions began in the 1960s, the search for liquid water has been the guiding slogan for every step. Life on our planet, Earth, has been intimately linked to water. “Where there is water, there is life”—this golden rule became the foundational hypothesis upon which all search strategies were built. Initially, terrestrial telescopes seemed to glimpse what they believed to be water channels, observations later revealed to be optical illusions. But the idea that Mars was once a watery world persisted. Then came the Viking missions in the 1970s, the first missions to carry integrated biological laboratories designed to search for microorganisms in Martian soil. The results were disappointing; no conclusive evidence of life was found. On the contrary, the missions revealed soil rich in potent oxidizing compounds, such as perchlorates, which were then thought to sterilize the soil and render it unsuitable for life.

But humanity did not despair. Two decades later, a new era of exploration began, this time focusing on searching for evidence of past water and attempting to understand how Mars’s climate evolved. Rovers such as Pathfinder in 1997, followed by Spirit and Opportunity in 2004, Curiosity in 2012, and most recently Perseverance in 2020, radically changed our understanding of Mars. Spirit and Opportunity revealed minerals formed in the presence of water, such as hematite and jarosite, and found evidence of ancient lakes and waterways. Curiosity unequivocally confirmed that Gale Crater, its landing site, contained a freshwater lake suitable for drinking for billions of years. Perseverance is currently exploring an ancient river delta in Jezero Crater, resembling terrestrial river deltas, which are considered prime locations for the accumulation of organic sediments and life signatures. Thus, we have proven that liquid water existed abundantly on Mars in the distant past. This alone was a tremendous scientific triumph. But after this immense body of evidence for ancient water, why have we not discovered any direct evidence of life, neither in the past nor in the present?

Here lies the role of our deep analysis of methodological errors. We have focused almost exclusively on liquid water as we know it on Earth. This is the central point of the research. Our search for life has been potentially limited by two key assumptions:

• First: the assumption that life must be “Earth-like.” We have presumed that Martian life, if it exists, would require stable conditions of liquid water, moderate temperature, and suitable atmospheric pressure, precisely as on our planet. But Mars today is an entirely different world. Its atmospheric pressure is extremely low, meaning liquid water boils or freezes incredibly rapidly. Temperatures fluctuate wildly. Additionally, intense radiation penetrates its surface. These conditions do not permit the existence of large, stable bodies of surface water. Consequently, searching for life that requires these conditions on the current Martian surface is a doomed endeavor.
• Second: surface-level focus. Most of our missions, even those that drill, penetrate only a few centimeters or, at most, a few meters. What if Martian life, if it exists, has retreated to greater depths, escaping radiation and harsh surface conditions? In the Martian subsurface, pockets of water ice or even liquid water heated by geothermal activity could exist. Below the surface, radiation could be lower, pressure more stable, and perhaps minerals interact with water to generate energy for living organisms. Our current technology, while advanced, might be overlooking unseen possibilities for life.