[BRIEF NOTE] What's Going On Out There?
Jul. 17th, 2004 09:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldIt has been reported (BBC, Toronto Star) that the European Mars Express probe has apparently detected ammonia in Mars' atmosphere. This is critical: The composition of the Martian atmosphere and surface, and the world's low gravity, means that the ammonia detected must be constantly generated. Mars is a different world, with a planetology operating on rules somewhat different from Earth's; but on Earth, atmospheric ammonia is generated by life. The indirect discovery of microbial ecologies on Mars is an interesting idea, though the ethics of Mars terraforming promptly become rather difficult.
On a more depressing note, it seems that Tau Ceti--the nearest single yellow main-sequence star to our own single yellow main-sequence Sun--may be inhospitable to complex life, given recent observations which suggest that the Tau Ceti planetary system might have a dozen times as much asteroidal and cometary debris as our own planetary system. This has obvious implications for impacts on potentially life-bearing worlds.
It is indeed beginning to look, as Rare Earth suggests, that we might be alone in the neighbourhood. Microbes aplenty, but no one else to talk to.
On a more depressing note, it seems that Tau Ceti--the nearest single yellow main-sequence star to our own single yellow main-sequence Sun--may be inhospitable to complex life, given recent observations which suggest that the Tau Ceti planetary system might have a dozen times as much asteroidal and cometary debris as our own planetary system. This has obvious implications for impacts on potentially life-bearing worlds.
It is indeed beginning to look, as Rare Earth suggests, that we might be alone in the neighbourhood. Microbes aplenty, but no one else to talk to.
