If They Find Life in Space, Scientists Are Worried About Breaking the News. Here’s Why

Waiting for news about life on Mars? You’re 120 years late. That story broke on Dec. 9, 1906, when The New York Times ran a major piece under the brooking-no-argument headline, “There Is Life on the Planet Mars.” The proof? “The legions of canals on Mars” which are “an unanswerable argument for the existence of conscious, intelligent life.”

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

So…not so much. But the Times—and the world—got another crack at things 90 years later, on Aug. 6, 1996. That’s...