That goes for real estate as well as life's bigger questions. Microbes are a good example. On Saturday, NASA's Odyssey probe will begin a seven-month journey to the red planet to search for water and evidence of life, stoking the fires of the fledgling and controversial discipline of astrobiology .
Astrobiology is a spectrum of sciences focused on learning more about life both on Earth and off.
Discovered in 1984, some scientists assert that ALH84001 contains the fossilized remains of microbes from Mars. Many other scientists are just as convinced that it does not. Whether these questions are worth asking is, well, another question. But I have a few reservations about the sorts of studies or issues they're coming up with that are getting into the media. But some of those issues are what excite the media the most.