cular, most now reject the claim that a small “Mars meteorite”, picked up in Antarctica in 1984, contained fossilised micro-organisms.11,12 And there are increasing doubts that Mars was ever as warm and as wet as thought, despite the claims of catastrophic flooding.
The latest setback for the evolutionist “true believers” is that analysis of meteorites believed to have originated from Mars has shown that the sulfur isotopes they contain were produced by atmospheric chemical reactions, not by bacteria.13 Further disappointment has been the failure of NASA’s latest two Mars missions and the loss of the Mars landing crafts.
There is, in fact, no evidence that life originated on Mars. Or for that matter on Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons, which may hold some liquid water, but has few, if any, of the other conditions necessary for life.
Search for other planets14
Astrobiology (or exobiology—the study of/search for extraterrestrial life) has been given a shot in the arm recently now that researchers have developed two techniques for looking for extrasolar planets, i.e. those which may orbit stars beyond our solar system.
Planets do not shine by their own light, but reflect the light they receive from the star they orbit. As this reflected light could be as feeble as one billionth of that of the host star, an indirect technique for “seeing” such planets has been devised.
As a planet revolves around its star, it and the star tug on each other with an equal and opposite gravitational force. The pull of the planet on the much more massive star causes the star to move slightly towards the planet, as the planet swings around it. This may be seen from Earth as a periodic (i.e. regularly recurring) “wobble” on the part of that star.15,16
Another technique is that, when a planet passes in front of its star, it could, slightly but periodically, dim its star’s yellow-white glow. To detect this, an observer on Earth would need to be in exactly the same plane as the planet’s orbit.
What has been found?
Using special hardware and software to detect this wobble, and applying the “wobble-means-planet” theory, researchers have claimed to have found some 573 extrasolar planets (as of 9 August 2011—Ed.), including the first claimed three-planet solar system (around Upsilon Andromedae, about 44 light years from Earth).17
None of the claimed extrasolar planets fulfil any of the conditions needed to support life, so the search continues for Earth-sized planets (the optimum size for life as we know it). An Earth-sized planet would have about 1/300th of the gravitational pull of Jupiter (at the same distance), as Jupiter is 318 times the mass of Earth, and so any wobble an Earth-sized planet might cause would be too small to be detected with current equipment. Further research is proceeding.
If any extrasolar planets capable of supporting life were to be found, several major problems would inhibit any rocks from carrying such life to Earth. These are:
1. The need to achieve escape velocity
For a rock (or spacecraft) to break free from the pull of gravity of its mother planet, it must achieve a speed called the escape velocity. For Earth this is 11.18 km per second, or 40,248 kph (25,009 mph). For Mars it is 5.02 km per second, or 18,072 kph (11,229 mph). As volcanoes do not eject materials at these speeds, scientists postulate that rocks are blasted from planets and into space through giant asteroid collisions.
2. The tyranny of distance
The nearest star to Earth is Alpha Centauri. It is 4.37 light years away, which means that light—travelling at 300,000 km (186,000 miles) per second—takes 4.37 years to reach us, 40 million million km away. If an Earth-sized planet (the optimum size) were orbiting Alpha Centauri and a rock were blasted from it at the speed of Earth’s escape velocity, the object would take 115,000 years to get here.18
Any rock coming from an Earth-sized planet at the comparatively close distance of 40 light years away (or 1/2500th of the diameter of the Milky Way) would take over a million years to get here.
Series of timelapse images 