Life on Mars? Fossil find shows it's possible

reuters.com

27 pointsnarad4 comments

This is a nice find, boosting existing theories, but it's certainly not news that the early life probably thrived in a reducing, oxygen-free environment. Actually, the rise of photosynthetizing blue-green bacteria and the subsequent rapid climb of atmospheric molecular oxygen levels[1] may have caused a catastrophic extinction event, wiping out most of the contemporary life forms, undefended against the dangerously reactive chemical.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxygenation_Event

? That's what the article is about. For reasons not explained om detail in this write-up, the authors believe that early life was thriving in that region of the world. The mass extinction(s) that followed are kinda irrelevant.

That's what the article is about.

I think the OP's point is that this has been well established for a while, article makes it sound like a new theory.

I don't quite see how this find sheds new information on possibility of life on Mars. I though the greatest challenges to life on Mars were large temperature variations and lack of liquid water. It is already known that life could thrive in an oxygen-free environment, after all it had to start on Earth some-how.

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