Monthly Meeting

Is there life on Mars? It is one of the oldest and most enduring questions in astronomy, yet its meaning has changed dramatically over the past century. As Mars returns to prominence in the night sky before its February 2027 opposition, and as we mark the 50th anniversary of NASA’s Viking landers, this fascinating question once again captures the public imagination.

In the early twentieth century, Percival Lowell believed Mars was home to an advanced civilization that had constructed vast canals. By the dawn of the Space Age, many scientists hoped robotic probes would discover hardy vegetation. Today, NASA’s rovers search instead for evidence that simple microbial life may have existed long ago.

This presentation traces the remarkable evolution of our ideas about life on Mars and explores how those changing views have reflected broader developments in science, religion, politics and popular culture. Looking at Mars through a historical lens reveals as much about humanity as it does about the Red Planet itself, offering fresh insight into our continuing search for life elsewhere in the universe.

Dr. Jordan Bimm

Dr. Jordan Bimm is Assistant Instructional Professor of Science Communication and Public Discourse at the University of Chicago and a historian of science whose research explores the historical and cultural dimensions of space exploration, particularly the search for life beyond Earth. His work has appeared in leading scholarly journals and has been featured in The New York Times, The Atlantic, and Scientific American.

Dr. Bimm is the recipient of numerous honors, including the Sacknoff Prize for Space History, a Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Fellowship at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, and the David Edge Prize for Social Studies of Science. He was co-leader of the NASA Astrobiology Program’s workshop on communicating discoveries in the Search for Life in the Universe and currently serves on the SETI Institute’s Science Advisory Board and Discovery and Futures Lab.

This event is open to the public and free of charge.