What Are We Searching for on Mars?

Martians terrified me growing up. I remember watching the 1996 movie Mars Attacks! and fearing that the Red Planet harbored hostile alien neighbors. Though I was only 6 at the time, I was convinced life on Mars meant little green men wielding vaporizer guns. There was a time, not so long ago, when such an assumption about Mars wouldn’t have seemed so far-fetched.