From the Bookshelf of Science and Inquiry…

The Sirens of Mars: Searching for Life on Another World

Sarah Stewart Johnson

Start date: August 1, 2025

Finish date: August 31, 2025

Discussion: Book Club 2025

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Mar 05, 2022 aPriL does feral sometimes rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history, science, academic-notations, literary, non-fiction

A history of Mars

While the book is compact and fact-based, the author Sarah Stewart Johnson also captures the romantic fascination the people of earth have always felt for Mars in 'The Sirens of Mars'. She describes how the surface of Mars in early telescopes stirred many scientists into imagining the cities and canals and farms which must be there for Mars to look as it did. Many wonderful works of fiction are based on these early observations.

Science instruments of observation got better, but ...more

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Jun 03, 2022 David Rubenstein rated it really liked it

Shelves: audiobook, science, astronomy, memoirs

My favorite books about science topics are always the ones that are written by scientists. This book, by Professor Sarah Johnson, is exceptionally well written. I didn't read this book--I listened to the audiobook. By listening to it, I heard a lyricism that is not often encountered in books about science. Well done!

This book is about the history of Mars exploration, with an emphasis on the search for life. The successes and failures of astronomers and modern space probes are described in a pers ...more

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Mar 04, 2021 Mary rated it really liked it

Shelves: science

Johnson's book is appropriately titled. She writes about humanity's obsession with Mars and Martians over the years. The invention of the telescope allowed scientists get a good look at the distant planet and see what they presumed were canals. More sophisticated telescopes and eventual robotic missions to Mars provided information about the planet's surface and weather but no Martians yet. Currently, at least 3 countries including the United States are again pursuing a greater understanding of ...more

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Aug 15, 2025 Tomislav rated it really liked it

Shelves: science, auto-biography

Like many people, I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of life on Mars. In my case, this was fed by my reading of science fiction from earlier eras of higher expectations, and also by having grown up in the US during the Mariner missions. I had poster-sized photos from Viking 1 lander on my college room walls.

Sarah Stewart Johnson’s book is in part an approachable history of the scientific revolutions in the conception of life and planetary science on Mars, featuring the successive lowering o Like many people, I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of life on Mars. In my case, this was fed by my reading of science fiction from earlier eras of higher expectations, and also by having grown up in the US during the Mariner missions. I had poster-sized photos from Viking 1 lander on my college room walls.

Sarah Stewart Johnson’s book is in part an approachable history of the scientific revolutions in the conception of life and planetary science on Mars, featuring the successive lowering of expectations over the years. And yet, I feel that knowing reality is always better than ungrounded speculative optimism – and clearly Johnson agrees. She relates the perspective of JPL insiders during the decades preceding her own participation. I have to admit it was a little disturbing for me to read that her father is closer in age to me than she is. For example, she was an infant during Carl Sagan’s Cosmos miniseries. Most importantly, she discusses the impact of each wave of new data on theory, and the design of new experiments for the new realities. The book was published in 2020, and she ends this thread with a discussion of the goals of the Mars 2020 mission. Reading it now in 2025, the Perseverance Rover and Ingenuity Helicopter are historical accomplishments, and I needed to resort to some internet searches to learn what the impacts of their findings have been. It seems that the possibility of chemical energy life in Mars’ past was confirmed, but not actually found (yet?). A future mission to retrieve the core samples taken is so uncertain as to not have a firm date. I’d be happy if someone could give me a reference for an overview of the findings of Mars 2020, better than the Wikipedia entry.

At the same time, this book is her own auto-biography. She was an enthusiastic math student in her school years, with strongly supportive parents, and received a full-tuition-with-stipend scholarship to Washington University in St. Louis. Personally, I wish I had known that such things were possibilities. But I did eventually reach Wash U myself for grad school, a full 15 years before she arrived on the campus. Her opportunities were great, with faculty mentors and international field travel even as a sophomore. She also made connections that led her to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and to MIT, etc. In the end of the book, which is only in her own middle age, she diverges into some philosophical thoughts that I did not find remarkable.

So, my review is tops for Martian planetary science, and meh on the auto-biography. ...more

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