Space
Life in the solar system may have first originated on Mars, not Earth
A new study published in the journal Science Advances suggests that the organic molecules that allowed life to begin were present on Mars about 4.5 billion years ago.
And while these critical components may have hit Earth around the same time, it was on the Red Planet that life found its most favorable conditions.
Earth and Mars are members of the inner solar system, made up of four rocky planets and an asteroid belt. Shortly after their formation, these terrestrial planets were brutally bombarded when a shower of asteroids hit the inner solar system.
While these rocks were assimilated into the crust of Earth and Mars, the movement of plate tectonics on our home world caused these ancient meteors to fall into the interior of the planet.
In contrast, the surface of Mars is stationary, meaning that rocks that crashed into the planet in the distant past remain in place and can be studied.
By analyzing 31 Martian meteorites, the authors of the study sought to answer a number of fundamental questions about their origin.
For example, until now, scientists have not determined where these ancient projectiles from the inner or outer solar system came from, and whether they carried any organic material that could allow life to develop.
Using ultra-precise measurements of chromium isotopes, the researchers identified the meteorites as carbonaceous chondrites from the outer solar system.
Based on the prevalence of such rocks on Mars and the fact that ice typically makes up 10 percent of their mass, the authors calculated that these ancient impacts brought enough water to Mars to cover the entire planet in 307 meters of water.
Remarkably, carbonaceous chondrites from the outer solar system also transported organic molecules such as amino acids to the inner solar system.
These compounds are essential for the formation of DNA and likely provided the raw materials that allowed life to begin.
“At this time, Mars was bombarded with ice-filled asteroids. This happened in the first 100 million years of the evolution of the planet ,” study author Professor Martin Bizzarro explained in a statement. “Another interesting aspect is that the asteroids also carried organic molecules that are biologically important to life.”
However, while conditions on Mars may have been ideal for life at this early stage, the same cannot be said for Earth. “After that period, something catastrophic happened to potential life on Earth, ” says Bizzaro.
It is believed that a giant collision has taken place between Earth and another planet the size of Mars. It was an energetic collision that formed the Earth-Moon system and at the same time destroyed all potential life on Earth.
Taken together, these results indicate that life likely had a better chance of thriving on Mars than on Earth during the formative years of the inner solar system.
A former US Air Force fighter pilot asserts that he has deciphered
the method behind the extraordinary maneuvers of UFOs, reports dailystar.co.uk.
Over
the past two decades, numerous military encounters with these enigmatic
crafts have been reported, prompting a significant investigation by the
Pentagon.
One of the most renowned sightings occurred during the
USS Nimitz encounter, where fighter pilots witnessed a UFO descending
from 28,000 feet to just above sea level in less than a second.
This
astonishing movement would imply that the craft reached a staggering
speed of 19,000 miles per hour, a velocity that would be fatal to any
human pilot.
According
to Chris Lehto, a former USAF pilot, the craft exhibits two key
characteristics: it moves without inertia, essentially lacking weight,
and it accelerates at an incredibly rapid pace without affecting its
surroundings.
Image: NATO Allied Air Command/Facebook
Chris
believes that the explanation lies within a technology that seems
straight out of science fiction. He proposes that the answer to the UFO
enigma lies in the Alcubierre Drive, a theoretical interstellar engine
conceptualized by Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre in 1994.
The
Alcubierre Drive employs a form of “space warp” technology, reminiscent
of what has been depicted in episodes of Star Trek. By bending space, a
craft inside a “warp bubble” could potentially travel at or even
surpass the speed of light without violating the known laws of physics.
While
the Alcubierre Drive remains a hypothetical concept with challenges to
overcome, Chris notes that the required energy is no longer believed to
be unattainably large.
Patents
filed with the US patent office outline the potential workings of the
drive, as well as another groundbreaking technology theorized by
American aerospace engineer Salvatore Pais.
Pais suggests that
high-powered rotating magnets could theoretically eliminate an object’s
inertia, and he has filed a patent for a starship based on this
principle.
However, Chris maintains skepticism regarding Pais’
theory. He explains that while Pais’s patent applications for the US
Navy attracted attention for their potential energy-related
applications, doubts have been raised about their feasibility. There is
speculation that they may be scams, pseudoscience, or disinformation
intended to mislead adversaries of the United States.
Alternatively,
rival theories propose that the “Tic Tac” UFO is a classified Pentagon
project testing similar advanced technologies discussed by Chris.
Scientists say they have found evidence of a new Earth-like
planet that has suddenly appeared in our Solar System and is orbiting
the Sun.
Physicists, including those from the National Astronomical Observatory
of Japan, said the planet is likely to be the mysterious ‘Planet Nine’
that was hypothesised to exist in the far outer edges of the Solar
System.
Several studies in the past have suggested there is likely an
undiscovered planet beyond the Kuiper Belt – a stellar disk of materials
such as asteroids, space rocks, comets around the Sun in the outer
Solar System past the orbit of Neptune.
Independent.co.uk reports: In the new research, published recently in The Astronomical Journal, scientists
found that some of the objects in the Kuiper Belt behave in a way
indicative of the presence of a small planet among them.
One such object, they said, is about 500 astronomical units (AU) from
the Sun, where 1 AU is the distance between the Sun and the Earth.
In comparison Neptune is at a distance of 30 AUs from the Sun.
Some of these were also found to have “odd” orbits suggesting they
are being pull by the gravity of a cosmic entity larger than those that
typically influence such objects.
Computer simulations run by the scientists indicate that the most
likely explanation for the observations was another hidden planet in the
Kuiper Belt.
“We predict the existence of an Earth-like planet,” researchers wrote in the study.
“It is plausible that a primordial planetary body could survive in
the distant Kuiper Belt as a Kuiper Belt planet (KBP), as many such
bodies existed in the early solar system,” they added.
If such a planet exists, researchers say it would have a mass about
1.5 to 3 times that of Earth with an inclination of about 30 degrees.
They say the theorised planet’s orbit would likely place it between 250 and 500 AU from the Sun.
Researchers say the discovery of such a planet close to the Kuiper
Belt can unravel new constraints on planet formation and evolution.
“In conclusion, the results of the KBP scenario support the existence
of a yet-undiscovered planet in the far outer solar system,” scientists
noted.
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