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PrayForMojo_ t1_iyjkqwt wrote

Reply to comment by Morall_tach in Mars had an ancient asteroid impact similar to the Chicxulub ‘planet killer’ impact on Earth, a discovery that may have astrobiological implications by marketrent

If life existed and an asteroid impact killed it all, that would have a big impact on how we search for signs on the ground there. Plus knowing that life evolved on not just Earth is a HUGE discovery for the potential of other planets in other solar systems maybe having life.

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Outypoo t1_iym0mnm wrote

Does knowing life evolved on earth not just mean the exact same thing? Knowing it happened on 2 planets is a bit arbitrary when we know it already happened on ours, unless people think we are the only planet out of billions/trillions+?

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Double_Distribution8 t1_iymhrag wrote

We don't know the odds for life evolving, we only have a sample size of 1 currently. For all we know it's a 1 in a 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 chance.

If we found out that life evolved independently on another planet or moon in our solar system, then that means life is not so rare at all. That would mean the universe should be absolutely infested with life. And then the question would be "where is everybody"?

And there are various potential answers to that question.

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Morall_tach t1_iykjn7k wrote

Yes, but the presence of an impact crater does not imply that there was life killed off by that impact or that life evolved somewhere other than earth.

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PrayForMojo_ t1_iykphod wrote

That’s not what they’re saying.

It’s that a planet killer asteroid may have destroyed Mars’ atmosphere and turned it inhospitable to life. So if we do end up finding signs of even microbial life, we now have a fairly strong theory on why it didn’t survive.

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