5 ms·

Mostly old news really..

• droithomme 8y ago
  Yes, it's been known for decades. Perhaps the new news is the latest sighting and that now it's accepted as fact. It peaks in the warmer months. Many Martian meteorites have been found on Earth, and it's likely that earth meteorites have made their way to Mars. We know that algae can survive in space and extreme conditions. It would be unexpected if simple life from earth had not made its way to mars from time to time. It would be interesting if it continued to survive there. The methane and its seasonality is possible evidence of this. Reasonable targets for future Mars missions are craters where methane is known to accumulate.
  • dekhn 8y ago
    for life to have moved from one planet to another is unlikely: it's the product of life being on the rock on the source planet in the first place, multiplied by the probability the rock gets ejected into space, that the life survives a journal, and that it lands on a planet where it can survive. All of those are extremely tiny probabilities (but nobody denies the mass exchange between planets).
    • bluGill 8y ago
      Slow down. There is life pretty much everywhere on earth. The probability the life is on a rock ejected into space is nearly 100%. Only when we get to life surviving the journey that we have and doubt, but even then there are a lot of different single cell lifeforms on that rock and we only need one to survive. If that one survives the space journey odds are it can survive on mars as well.