What We Just Found on Mars

I want to live in a world where this kind of news is a top headline for weeks

I'm a Geologist and last month, I found 'bug poops' in some drill core from NE Ontario Canada. After some research, I learned that these were well studied in the region. They are actually excretions from bacteria that lived in an anaerobic, deep sea environment in what became a graphitic shale after mild (greenschist facies) metamorphism. They came in different shapes, but many of them are almost perfect spheres of a mineral called marcasite. FeS2, the same formula as pyrite, but a different arrangement of the sulphur atoms. I kept one that is about 1cm (just under half an inch) across. Studies show that these are 2.685 Bn years old and could only occur because the Earth's oceans and atmospheres hadn't been filled with oxygen yet. That would happen about 300M years later. Very cool to a Geo nerd.

I'm with Carl Sagan "It seems far more likely that the universe is brimming over with life" But right next door on Mars. That would make "brimming" almost and understatement.

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Even if all life on mars is now extinct it would still be insane, because if two of our planets in one solar system had life then that would mean statistically it would be abundant in the universe

Did anybody read the sign in the background 2:08

Maybe 30 years ago, I interviewed a meteoriticist at the Field Museum in Chicago. She let me hold a meteorite from Mars. It was just a small rock, but I felt like I was holding the universe. I’ll never forget it.

"slavery was bad, m'kay" a southpark reference at NASA how incredible is that

While this is fascinating, the white board with a South Park Mr Mackey "M'kay" quote is even more fascinating 😅

wow