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4:17 video Think of the ozone layer as Earth's sunglasses, protecting life on the surface from the harmful glare of the sun's strongest ultraviolet rays, which can cause skin cancer and other maladies. Ozone stinks. People who breathe it gag as their lungs burn. The EPA classifies ground-level ozone as air pollution. Yet without it, life on Earth would be impossible. A fragile layer of ozone 25 km above Earth's surface is all that stands between us and some of the harshest UV rays from the sun. The ozone molecule O3 blocks radiation which would otherwise burn skin and cause cancer. On Mars, which has no ozone layer to protect it, solar UV rays strafe the surface with deadly effect, leaving the apparently lifeless planet without the simplest of organic molecules in the upper millimeters of exposed Martian soil.