Morall_tach t1_iyjfcc3 wrote
I don't understand why the presence of an enormous impact crater has any implications as to whether life exists or existed on Mars.
PrayForMojo_ t1_iyjkqwt wrote
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.
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+?
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.
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.
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.
JaggedMetalOs t1_iykj5h2 wrote
They seem to be claiming that the Viking 1 probe landed on a site where a proposed mega tsunami from the impact hit, which would have deposited ocean sediment which contained evidence for life which they think explains the soil experiment results the Viking landers got.
Though I think this might be a bit far fetched given how long ago the impact must have been and how much weathering would have taken place since.
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