Scientists have come up with a new definition of life due to a NASA mission

The rover Perseverance might obtain evidence of life on Mars. It is to land on an area which used to be covered with water in the past. Therefore, we might find some signs of life. The mission called Mars 2020 has been launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida recently. It is going to search for the traces of life for 687 days. Astrobiologists will be hoping for either proving or disproving the existence of life on Mars during that time. Consequently, the scientists have altered the definition of life.

According to NASA scientists, it is highly likely that the rover might discover something which would bear no remembrance to what we regard as ''the life we know''. As a consequence, in their new research they define new conditions for extraterrestrial life called ''lyfe''. This new concept establishes four criteria.

The organism lyfe has to be capable of utilizing and transforming energy sources, of growth and expansion. Similarly, it has to be able to learn.

According to one of the authors of the concept, it will be rather the cases of lyfe than of ''our'' life which is to be found on Mars. S. Barlette and M.L. Wong claim in their work that Martian organisms might use other molecular structure. Their proteins might consist of a lower number of amino acids. Besides, they might have sequences of nucleotide dublets instead of triplets.

The rover Perseverance, which weighs over a ton, is to descend on the crater and begin to collect the samples. It will be accompanied by a helicopter and the collected samples will be taken back to the Earth by the next mission. Thus, if anyone has ever lived on Mars, it might be Perseverance that will find the evidence.