Life From Space: Mars and Asteroids
Can life survive a journey through space? Experiments offer a resounding yes. For example, Japanese scientists sealed up Bacillus subtilis spores and other various organisms in a vacuum chamber and simulated the conditions of space exposure over a period of 250 years. In the end. half the sample survived, with the tobacco-mosaic virus doing the best at an 85% survival rate. It should be noted that these were normal organisms, not extremophiles which thrive in the nastiest conditions.
Some organisms even today display a very impressive tolerance of high levels of radiation ? something which makes very little evolutionary sense unless life had to pass through some sort of radiation bottleneck in the distant past. This bottleneck needn?t have been outer space, but there is reason to think that it existed.
The most likely source of extraterrestrial visitors is, ironically enough, Mars. Some factors favor Mars over Earth as an origin for life, like the fact that it is smaller and presented a lesser target for passing comets and asteroids. Mars also probably cooled sooner after formation, allowing life to get started much earlier than here.
Of course, the reverse of this scenario is also true ? it is not impossible that life got its start on Earth and then travelled to Mars where it eventually died out or perhaps still exists ? either thriving or dormant ? deep below the surface. Because of the heavy bombardment which our planet has received over the millennia, a tremendous amount of organic material has been thrown into the upper atmosphere and even into space.
These are reasons why it is so imperative to study Mars and see if it ever harbored life, because if that life is related to life here, we will gain dramatic insights into its origins. Similar reasons exist for finding life elsewhere in the universe. This goes well beyond mere scientific discovery and cuts to the heart of our philosophies about the nature of life ? life in general and our lives in particular.
If theists are right about the universe and life being created by a god with some specific purpose in mind, then there is no immediate reason why we should find colonies of bacteria underground on Mars or beneath the ice on Europa or even in another solar system. But finding such life would give force to the argument that life is simply a natural development under natural laws whenever conditions are right.
Moreover, the discovery of basic physical laws which drive the development of life, as per the suggestion of Davies, would almost effectively eliminate creator-gods from the equation entirely. All that would remain is a deist-like god which created all these pretty ?natural laws? and then let things run along as they would.
But this really is a hollow god with no real significance for our lives and no apparent significance for anything like an afterlife. Current research into the nature and origins of life are proceeding rapidly, giving us new ideas and new insights every year. This is a threat to traditional theism, and may someday serve to kill it.
Some organisms even today display a very impressive tolerance of high levels of radiation ? something which makes very little evolutionary sense unless life had to pass through some sort of radiation bottleneck in the distant past. This bottleneck needn?t have been outer space, but there is reason to think that it existed.
The most likely source of extraterrestrial visitors is, ironically enough, Mars. Some factors favor Mars over Earth as an origin for life, like the fact that it is smaller and presented a lesser target for passing comets and asteroids. Mars also probably cooled sooner after formation, allowing life to get started much earlier than here.
Of course, the reverse of this scenario is also true ? it is not impossible that life got its start on Earth and then travelled to Mars where it eventually died out or perhaps still exists ? either thriving or dormant ? deep below the surface. Because of the heavy bombardment which our planet has received over the millennia, a tremendous amount of organic material has been thrown into the upper atmosphere and even into space.
Search: Origins and Meanings
These are reasons why it is so imperative to study Mars and see if it ever harbored life, because if that life is related to life here, we will gain dramatic insights into its origins. Similar reasons exist for finding life elsewhere in the universe. This goes well beyond mere scientific discovery and cuts to the heart of our philosophies about the nature of life ? life in general and our lives in particular.
If theists are right about the universe and life being created by a god with some specific purpose in mind, then there is no immediate reason why we should find colonies of bacteria underground on Mars or beneath the ice on Europa or even in another solar system. But finding such life would give force to the argument that life is simply a natural development under natural laws whenever conditions are right.
Moreover, the discovery of basic physical laws which drive the development of life, as per the suggestion of Davies, would almost effectively eliminate creator-gods from the equation entirely. All that would remain is a deist-like god which created all these pretty ?natural laws? and then let things run along as they would.
But this really is a hollow god with no real significance for our lives and no apparent significance for anything like an afterlife. Current research into the nature and origins of life are proceeding rapidly, giving us new ideas and new insights every year. This is a threat to traditional theism, and may someday serve to kill it.
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