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This seems to be the news: > "This is the biggest carbon-rich asteroid sample ever returned to Earth," NASA administrator Bill Nelson said Maybe the presence
by kaycebasques 3y ago
This seems to be the news:
> "This is the biggest carbon-rich asteroid sample ever returned to Earth," NASA administrator Bill Nelson said
Maybe the presence of carbon and water is well-established through theory and remote observation, but it seems a lot more conclusive when you can find it, go out and grab it, and bring it back to Earth. Or maybe it's already well-established through asteroids that fall naturally to Earth?
And isn't there a huge related question that is not conclusively settled whatsoever (if my armchair scientist readings are correct): whether life started here or elsewhere?
- jerf 3y agoI think the life question may be what they are trying to get at, but if they are, they're running the story on cognitive autopilot. Nobody of any scientific significance believes, or as far as I can see as someone interested in this topic, ever has believed that the limit on life elsewhere is that only Earth had the raw elements necessary for life. Nobody doubts that carbon atoms exist elsewhere in the universe, and in quantity. It's sort of like the stories about how there are planets around other stars, therefore, handwave handwave something about life give us more money. Nobody (of scientific relevance) has ever seriously claimed that the only planets in the universe are the ones we can see in our solar system. There were some debates about how many there may be, but nobody ever proposed that they were somehow rare in absolute terms. Debates about the natures of those planets aplenty, certainly, but not their existence.