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That raises an interesting point. There are actually two different concepts of life on Mars: 1) Life that has a shared lineage with Earth life. 2) Life tha

by ryandvm 12y ago

That raises an interesting point. There are actually two different concepts of life on Mars: 1) Life that has a shared lineage with Earth life. 2) Life that is unrelated to Earth life. #1 would be neat news, but it wouldn't be particularly earth shattering news (hah). As you mention, this would be through ejecta transfer - some primordial bacteria hitching a ride on interplanetary asteroid impact debris. The thing about #1 is that we're almost certain it's completely plausible. We have extremophiles on Earth that live in conditions just as harsh as some of the places on Mars. The tricky part would be getting them there. Sadly, biological transfer between planets doesn't really help us fill in any of the variables in the Drake equation... But #2 - that would be incredible. If we were to find life on Mars and we could prove that it had no relation to life on Earth, that forcibly changes everyone's cosmic perspective. Proving that life evolved independently twice in the same solar system would mean the universe must be teeming with it.

ChuckMcM 12y ago
A little coven of Tardigrades working on their next mission to earth perhaps :-) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade
danieltillett 12y ago
If I had to make a bet I would predict that we will find that there is life in a number of locations within the solar system (Mars, some of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn) and they will all be related to life on earth. The Earth has a cosmic cold and has been sneezing in all directions for billions of years. One of the interesting things about bacteria is that there are two major lineages here on earth (the archea and the true bacteria). Some people have speculated that one arose on Earth and the other on Mars, but I doubt we will ever find good evidence for this speculation.

by ryandvm 12y ago

ChuckMcM 12y ago

A little coven of Tardigrades working on their next mission to earth perhaps :-) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade

danieltillett 12y ago

If I had to make a bet I would predict that we will find that there is life in a number of locations within the solar system (Mars, some of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn) and they will all be related to life on earth. The Earth has a cosmic cold and has been sneezing in all directions for billions of years. One of the interesting things about bacteria is that there are two major lineages here on earth (the archea and the true bacteria). Some people have speculated that one arose on Earth and the other on Mars, but I doubt we will ever find good evidence for this speculation.