The news from Mars recently has been as delightfully confusing as ever. It’s not that science is failing to advance – the astronomers are accumulating data hand over fist. But there’s so much knowledge pouring in that it’s hard to understand.

How that’s any different from life on Earth, I’m not sure. But maybe that’s a sign Mars is even more like our world than it seems on the surface.

In May yet another space probe, Phoenix, successfully landed on Mars. Already there are the Opportunity and Spirit rovers, which have been tooling around in craters and deserts since 2004, and the Pathfinder rover that broadcast its last data in 1997. The long-defunct Viking landers presumably are still sitting silent and stationary in the red desert after launching the controversies back in 1976, when their life-seeking experiment turned out to be flawed and inconclusive.

Phoenix has been digging around since it arrived. In June its robotic arm excavated a small trench and exposed some white patches, which promptly started to shrink, meaning they were melting – something only frozen water could do in the low-pressure, minus-60 Celsius atmosphere. This was not exactly groundbreaking news, as signs of water ice have been noticed and re-noticed several times in the past few years. In fact, last month Phoenix noticed it snowing high over Mars’ arctic region, a first.

After the melting ice was seen, NASA scientists said Phoenix’s experiments on the Martian soil showed it was Earth-like enough to grow vegetables – in particular asparagus, for some reason. Then a month later, after a PR buildup about an “announcement” of new findings (is it aliens?), NASA said simply that the experiments had found perchlorate in the sand. Perchlorate is a relative of chlorine, and would not provide any particular help to living organisms; in fact, it might discourage them.

So this was sort of confusing. Seemingly less confusing was the idea suggested in April 2007 that Mars might be undergoing climate change. The scientists had noticed that parts of Mars’ midsection were noticeably darker – meaning reflecting less light – and others were lighter in 2000 than they were in the 1970s. The computer models suggested the darkening and lightening could be due to an overall rise in temperature, from a half-degree to as much as 4 degrees Celsius. What might cause this is unknown. Which is somewhat puzzling in itself, as climate change here on Earth is widely believed to be provoked in significant part by the activities of living beings, especially humans – of which Mars has always been devoid. As far as anybody knows.

It’s not clear whether there’s any liquid water on Mars humans could live on in any case. Photos keep showing gullies that look for all the world like arroyos, but some researchers who analyzed high-resolution pictures from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter said recently there’s no reason to believe many aren’t simply landslides. But maybe water flowed there millions of years ago.

Photos last year also showed dark, circular structures in the sides of a mountain, Arsia Mons, which the planetary geologists figure must be caves. As every spelunker knows, the next question is: What’s in there? Could microorganisms be hiding out from the harsh Martian weather?

The scientists ask but can’t tell. Some people are convinced not only that there’s life, but that the space officials conceal it from us. A photo taken in 2004 by one of the rovers showed a tiny formation that strongly resembled a fossilized backbone. Unfortunately, the rover’s drill immediately annihilated it, and the only evidence is the one photo, which is not enough to conclude anything from.

Which seems to be the ongoing story of Mars so far, the most Earth-like of all the planets.

Dana Wilde may be reached at naturalist@dwildepress.net.