Right here on earth? – A scientist says there’s no need to search in space for alien life, that it’s right here on earth. Instead of a mission to Mars, he wants to launch a "mission to earth" to look for it.
Researcher Paul Davies thinks that strange, hitherto unknown forms of life may be lurking in toxic lakes or in vents under the ocean that heat nearby water to the boiling point.
In BBC News, James Morgan quotes Davies as saying, "We don’t have to go to other planets to find weird life. It could be right in front of our noses, or even in our noses. It is entirely reasonable to expect we will find a shadow biosphere here on Earth. But nobody has actually taken the trouble to look. The question is why? The cost is not expensive–it would be a fraction of the money we spend searching for extraterrestrial life."
The question WE’RE asking is, how did it get here? Did it come down in the form of "red rain" from space that Linda reported on last week? There are theories that we are all "Martians," since life may have traveled to this planet from Mars, riding on an asteroid.
Davies says, "We know rocks do get traded between the two planets, and life could hitch a ride. Personally, I’m only interested in establishing whether life happened more than once. If we find it has happened twice from scratch then it’s going to have happened all around the universe. It’s going to be teeming with life and there’s a very good chance we are not alone."
Art credit: freeimages.co.uk
If you got our FREE weekly email newsletter, you would have already read this story! To sign up, click here (and we NEVER share you email address with anyone).
NOTE: This news story, previously published on our old site, will have any links removed.
Subscribers, to watch the subscriber version of the video, first log in then click on Dreamland Subscriber-Only Video Podcast link.