Word: ideas
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Sound implausible? Consider the alternatives. Sir Fred Hoyle, the distinguished British astronomer, favors an even more radical theory. The idea, known as panspermia, is that billions of years ago, the solar system was peppered by biological "seeds," which took root wherever conditions were right. That would explain how life may have arisen at roughly the same time on Earth and on Mars. But it also raises awkward questions about where those seeds came from and what, or who, sent them flying through space...
Most scientists lean heavily toward the less disturbing theory that life arises spontaneously through commonplace chemical reactions. New findings over the past decade tend to support that idea. "Today life occurs on Earth everywhere you look," says Washington University geochemist Everett Shock. "It's in the Antarctic ice sheet. It's in hot springs. It's buried deep in the sea floor. Why not just assume it started here...
What about the idea that Mars seeded Earth? Recent findings suggest there could have been substantial biological exchange between the planets. Every year, researchers calculate, two tons of Martian material rain down on Earth, and two tons of terrestrial rock smash into Mars. The chances that a primitive creature secreted in this rock may survive such a journey are beginning to look surprisingly good. It takes 10 million years or so for a piece of Earth to reach Mars, and some scientists argue, on the basis of organisms trapped in ancient amber, that bacteria can survive even longer...
...possibility of one day sending astronauts instead of robots to obtain the rocks? "What happened certainly doesn't hurt that idea," Haynes concedes...
...years ago, the slapstick asteroid A slammed into planet B (Mars, the fourth rock from the sun), dislodging spud-size meteorite C, which spitballed through space and whammed into planet D (Earth). Betimes, the alien microspud wakes up in the Antarctic and assumes the shape of an outlandishly hot idea, E (LIFE ON MARS!!!!), which pinballs hectically through Earthling media, knocking vases off the mantelpiece, toppling assumptions, causing tabloid amazement and theological consternation...