Dinosaur asteroid 'sent life to Mars' • Hacker News Board

Re: Dinosaur asteroid 'sent life to Mars'

#21

Post by InclinedPlane » Wed, Dec 11, 2013, 6:48 PM UTC

ayubskhan wrote: post #17

I don't believe this story! Why don't we find those rocks ejected during the impact on Moon?

Are you asking why we never found a small number of Earth rocks scattered over the entire surface of the Moon during a period of only a few hours total of lunar exploration? The answer should be obvious.

Re: Dinosaur asteroid 'sent life to Mars'

#22

Post by InclinedPlane » Wed, Dec 11, 2013, 6:55 PM UTC

This is interesting primarily because we know a decent amount about the nature of the Chicxulub impact event, so we can model it. And in doing so we've found that it should be possible for microbial life deep inside Earth rocks to end up in heliocentric orbits and to be protected from space radiation long enough to have a reasonable chance of surviving until the rock they are in hits another planetary body in our Solar System.

What this actually means, though, is that likely many other impact events in Earth's history could have done the same thing. Even going back billions of years. Which means that the probability of Earth life having landed on Mars, Venus, or Europa in a way which might have seeded locations favorable to life is very much non zero.

This sort of thing has been speculated about before but never modelled so rigorously using real-world impacts as examples.

Re: Dinosaur asteroid 'sent life to Mars'

#23

Post by Houshalter » Wed, Dec 11, 2013, 6:55 PM UTC

How likely is it for these organisms to survive ejection in the first place? I thought asteroid impacts were incredibly hot and violent.

Re: Dinosaur asteroid 'sent life to Mars'

#24

Post by InclinedPlane » Wed, Dec 11, 2013, 7:00 PM UTC

Houshalter wrote: post #23

How likely is it for these organisms to survive ejection in the first place? I thought asteroid impacts were incredibly hot and violent.

Rocks make great insulators though, which just leaves acceleration as an issue, though microbes handle high acceleration just fine.

Re: Dinosaur asteroid 'sent life to Mars'

#25

Post by blacksmith_tb » Wed, Dec 11, 2013, 7:08 PM UTC

arbuge wrote: post #16

hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #7

Even if organisms got ejected with rocks, wouldn't they just die frozen or from radiation on the long journey thru the vacuum?

....or from the rock they're in burning up in reentry.

Mars' atmosphere is much thinner, I don't think a 3m thick boulder would burn up (impact, though, would be, uh, energetic, however).

Re: Dinosaur asteroid 'sent life to Mars'

#26

Post by josefresco » Wed, Dec 11, 2013, 7:10 PM UTC

InclinedPlane wrote: post #21

ayubskhan wrote: post #17

I don't believe this story! Why don't we find those rocks ejected during the impact on Moon?

Are you asking why we never found a small number of Earth rocks scattered over the entire surface of the Moon during a period of only a few hours total of lunar exploration? The answer should be obvious.

To be fair...the surface of Earth's moon has been much more extensive than just physical lunar surface exploration.

It's also a fair question, have we seen evidence from this on our moon? And if not is it really because of the limited exploration or some other factors?

Re: Dinosaur asteroid 'sent life to Mars'

#27

Post by icambron » Wed, Dec 11, 2013, 7:18 PM UTC

curtis wrote: post #15

The notion that an asteroid impact could launch life-bearing debris to escape velocity is not new. I remember it being mentioned in one of Lester Del Rey's juvenile science fiction books -- possibly "Outpost of Jupiter", which according to Wikipedia was first published in 1963.

The difference is that this models a specific impact to see whether it would work. That's a long long way from conclusive, of course, but it's a useful addition.

Re: Dinosaur asteroid 'sent life to Mars'

#28

Post by MartinCron » Wed, Dec 11, 2013, 7:23 PM UTC

For anyone who is interested in the Dinosaur asteroid, may I suggest listening to or watching the latest RadioLab, which went into some interesting (speculative) depth about what may have happened.

Re: Dinosaur asteroid 'sent life to Mars'

#29

Post by chebucto » Wed, Dec 11, 2013, 7:26 PM UTC

gagege wrote: post #3

alexkus wrote: post #2

> "Even using conservative, realistic estimates... it's still possible that organisms could be swimming around out there in the oceans of Europa," she said. ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE

Have you seen the movie Europa Report? I don't want to spoil any part of it for you, but it's really good. If you have Netflix, it's on there.

Race to Mars, a 4-part miniseries by the Discovery Channel, is also worth while. The spacecraft and lander are based on existing ideas for trips to Mars. The physics in it are depicted accurately, as far as I could tell. Problems that arise seemed plausible, too. The interactions of the crew are well done, and aren't hammed up for dramatic effect.

Re: Dinosaur asteroid 'sent life to Mars'

#30

Post by negamax » Wed, Dec 11, 2013, 7:39 PM UTC

So basically, if a planet has no dominant/intelligent species capable of protecting itself; not only nature resets that planet; it scatters the building blocks of life to other planets as well in the process.

Billions of years forward. Intelligent life on multiple planets from same building blocks. They fight for dominance in a new natural selection. This time to see which planet was conducive for creating better lifeforms.