<story><title>Water on Mars: discovery of three buried lakes intrigues scientists</title><url>https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02751-1</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>woeirua</author><text>IMO, I don&amp;#x27;t think it should be a surprise that we will eventually find signs of extraterrestial (but not necessarily intelligent) life in our solar system. The real question is: does it share any common building blocks with life on Earth or not?  The answer to that question could dramatically change our understanding of our place in the universe as well as open up entire new fields of productive research in biochemistry.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ramraj07</author><text>Anyone who has tried to keep their culture plates sterile in a lab will probably appreciate panspermia more than regular people. I&amp;#x27;ll personally put all my money into life being found at least fossilized not just in Mars but in europa and anywhere with liquid water, and sharing the same fundamental dna-protein-genetic code makeup as us (but probably little else). The way I see it, once life forms on one planet, it probably starts spreading seeds on a cosmic scale quite promiscuously. The speed at which life arose in earth as soon as conditions were right suggests that there&amp;#x27;s always microbes floating into the planet ready to take advantage.&lt;p&gt;This also would mean that there&amp;#x27;s no opportunity for any other form of life to develop in the same conditions - dna based life probably has a monopoly on water based planets throughout the galaxy</text></comment>
<story><title>Water on Mars: discovery of three buried lakes intrigues scientists</title><url>https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02751-1</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>woeirua</author><text>IMO, I don&amp;#x27;t think it should be a surprise that we will eventually find signs of extraterrestial (but not necessarily intelligent) life in our solar system. The real question is: does it share any common building blocks with life on Earth or not?  The answer to that question could dramatically change our understanding of our place in the universe as well as open up entire new fields of productive research in biochemistry.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>vkou</author><text>Would it actually change our understanding?&lt;p&gt;We know that if we apply an energy gradient through a soup of ammonia, methane, and water vapour, we get the fundamental building blocks of Earth life.&lt;p&gt;If we discovered these same blocks on another planet, that has all of these pre-conditions, what would it tell us?</text></comment>