81–90 of 329 posts
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If there were extra-terrestrial intervention, it would only have needed to be a one-time event. And it wouldn't be technologically hard to do it such that no trace remains over those timescales. So, yes, that's "crazy". On the other hand, it's unfalsifiable in the absence of other theories.
There are much saner theories for panspermia.
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At this point, given how much Mars had been roved, why hasn’t some fossil record been discovered yet? At the very least, I would expect something akin to chalk left behind by proto-diatoms that had calcium carbonate skeletons.
How would we know? It’s not like like we have a geologist over there with a rock hammer breaking open rocks to look for fossils.
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I get your point, but the idea that life originates on Asteroids and populates planets on impact is, imo, likely. It does shift the question to “how did it start there” :)
After going back through all the elephants, life started with Great A'Tuin.
Maybe we are about to discover that we came to Earth after messing up Mars.
You jest, but I seriously believe we are likely martians. Early panspermia from Mars settles a LOT of astrobiological questions about origin of life and LUCA complexity. To be clear, Mars’ descent into inhospitality was totally natural and the result of a smaller planet with stripped atmosphere just outside the habitable zone as the Sun cooled. I doubt Martian life developed to be multicellular. But I bet when we go…
One thing that has annoyed me is in the 1970s the Viking landers did experiments to check for the presence of life on Mars known as the Labeled Release experiments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_lander_biological_exper... which dropped a nutrient solution with radioactive Carbon-14 to detect if there was any off gassing to detect if anything metabolized the soil. And both experiments showed positive results but…
Read the wikipedia link and it seems there are credible explanations for what is going on: > "With unsterilized Terrestrial samples, though, the addition of more nutrients after the initial incubation would then produce still more radioactive gas as the dormant bacteria sprang into action to consume the new dose of food. This was not true of the Martian soil; on Mars, the second and third nutrient injections did not…
But that's probably because martian microbes are less tolerant of high temperatures when compared to Earth microbes. But, yes I am aware there are other non life factors that could have resulted in a positive detection. But my point is why would we never follow up with further experiments to test for possible chemical reactions?
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How does earth get seeded?
If there were extra-terrestrial intervention, it would only have needed to be a one-time event. And it wouldn't be technologically hard to do it such that no trace remains over those timescales. So, yes, that's "crazy". On the other hand, it's unfalsifiable in the absence of other theories.
Kurd Lasswitz wrote "Two Planets" in 1897, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39598983 > Lasswitz's Martians differ little from man physically, but ethically, intellectually, scientifically, and socially they are the prototype of the ideal human being. They seek to educate man, asking in return only air and energy to supplement the diminished supplies in their own, older world. The story revolves around a group of…
Possibly worth also including just how controversial Wernher von Braun is. Von Braun is a highly controversial figure widely seen as escaping justice for his Nazi war crimes due to the Americans' desire to beat the Soviets in the Cold War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun
Maybe we are about to discover that we came to Earth after messing up Mars.
You jest, but I seriously believe we are likely martians. Early panspermia from Mars settles a LOT of astrobiological questions about origin of life and LUCA complexity. To be clear, Mars’ descent into inhospitality was totally natural and the result of a smaller planet with stripped atmosphere just outside the habitable zone as the Sun cooled. I doubt Martian life developed to be multicellular. But I bet when we go…
Huh?
The Sun has consistently gotten hotter with age.