Is life on Mars related to life on Earth?

July 31, 2013 by Fraser Cain, Universe Today in Astronomy & Space / Space Exploration
Living Mars. Credit: Kevin Gill




If we did discover life there, it's possible that it's completely unrelated to Earth life. This would demonstrate that life can originate on almost any world, with the right conditions.

It's also possible that life on Mars is related to Earth, and our two planets share a billions of years in the past.

This is a theory called panspermia.

It suggests that life on Earth and Mars are connected. That life has been traveling from Mars to Earth and vice-versa for billions of years. "How is this possible?" you might ask.


Mars Meteorite. Credit: NASA

We know that both Earth and Mars have been hammered by countless asteroids in their history long. Some of these impacts are so powerful, rock debris is ejected into escape orbits. This blasted rock could the Sun for eons and then re-enter the atmosphere of another planet.

We know this is true, because we have meteorites on Earth which originated on Mars. Tiny gaps in the rock contained gases which match the atmosphere of Mars. You would think that an would sterilize life in the rocks, but amazingly, bacterial life can survive this process.


Some bacteria could even survive when their "" enters the atmosphere of another world.



If we do find it, will we discover that it's actually related to us? If we find life under the ice on Europa, or in the cloud tops of Venus, will we discover the same thing?

It gets even stranger.

The Solar System is leaving a trail of debris behind as it orbits around the Milky Way, which could be colliding with other star systems. Which means, it's possible that life around other stars is related to us too.

So maybe there's no life on Mars, or if there is, maybe it originated on its own, or maybe it's all related, as a result of trading life back and forth across giant spans of time and space.


Source: Universe Today

"Is life on Mars related to life on Earth?" July 31, 2013 http://phys.org/news/2013-07-life-mars-earth.html