Re: Hunt for life on Mars dealt another blow

Posted by cougar on Jan 07, 2002 at 11:08
(63.228.205.145)

Re: Hunt for life on Mars dealt another blow (Southern Man)


"...the conditions on Mars are found to be hospitable to life and still we don't find life, the less likely that life forms wherever conditions are hospitable."

At the risk of sounding like I'm in agreement with a previous point you've expressed :^) I think it's likely that the range of conditions for life to arise is somewhat smaller than the range of conditions life is capable of "moving into" once it has arisen.


Still, I think the range of conditions for life to arise is fairly broad and involves only a certain threshold of molecular diversity such that natural chemical reactions between molecules are catalyzed by other molecules, where the molecular results of the reaction are then available for use by the system for further reactions or catalysis, resulting in an autocatalytic set of interacting molecules.


So once life gets started, it can likely "expand its territory" and survive in conditions that would not allow life to initiate. Though the conditions necessary for the initiation of life may be fairly special, there is still a considerably wide range allowable, and those conditions are certainly not unimaginably uncommon.


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