There are half a dozen ongoing missions to the solar system. 2012 was a good year for space exploration. A number of interesting things have been discovered.
The solar system is chock full of organic material. Curiosity is homing in on definitive evidence of native Martian organics. MESSENGER has found remote evidence of organic material like tar in the shady polar nooks of Mercury (see picture). We are coming to know more about the methane cycle on Titan.
The other search is for water. People are a lot surer about the existence of water in the solar system. There is a mountain-sized chunk of ice heading into the inner solar system right now, Comet Ison. It may or may not turn out to be brighter than the Full Moon. It will get within 2 million miles of the Sun and leave a blazing tail behind it. Dawn is now on its way to Ceres, a dwarf planet in the Asteroid Belt, composed of ice and rock. Most interesting of all is a two billion year old Martian meteorite discovered carrying water. It is not proof in itself that Mars has surface water 2 billion years ago but it suggests there was 1) water and 2) organics on Mars at the same time as life was present on Earth.
Where did it all go? Is it perhaps still there, locked under the polar caps? Is there a subterranean biosphere prevailing? It’s worth finding out.