Mars Rock supports cross-seeding

Analysis: 'Bounce' rock's cosmic portent
By Phil Berardelli
United Press International
Published 4/16/2004 6:07 PM


WASHINGTON, April 16 (UPI) -- Opportunity's phenomenal luck continues.

Not only did NASA's rover land smack-dab in the middle of a neatly excavated and navigable crater on Mars, where it promptly uncovered persuasive evidence that water once flowed across the red planet, and not only has it been performing nearly flawlessly since it touched down on Jan. 24. Now, it also, essentially, has stubbed its toe on a rock whose discovery portends cosmic implications.

A few days ago, on its slow roll across the Martian terrain at its landing site at Meridiani Planum, an iron-oxide-rich area near the planet's equator, Opportunity's controllers noticed an odd-looking, football-shaped rock lying in the red dust. They named the rock "Bounce," because the lander most likely hit it as it bounced along the surface, cushioned by its airbags, before coming to rest inside the little crater called Eagle.

Controllers considered Bounce an odd find because it did not resemble any of the other rocks in the crater's vicinity -- nor did it resemble anything seen before on Mars, they said.

So they ordered Opportunity to train its formidable instruments on the rock, including the tool NASA engineers affectionately called the "RAT," for rock abrasion tool, which grinds away surface impurities to expose the undisturbed, primordial composition below.
For rest of story go to link provided above

I had never seriously accepted cross seeding, but, who knows after this?

Fascinatin' stuff, EB, thanks . . .

It could have been from another planet or from an asteroid, or from somewhere from Mars.

Several quotes from the article seem to indicate that these rocks are definitely (beyond a reasonable doubt) from Mars...

"Micro-bubbles of gas trapped in dozens of meteorites found on Earth -- including Shergotty -- match the recipe of Martian atmosphere so closely that they must have originated on Mars."

... or on many worlds (and moons), not just Mars and Earth...

In some ways the possibility of planetary cross pollination is a bit dissapointing.

Part of me has always hoped that we would find something truely alien on another planet. Something that wasn't even evolved from DNA (if such a thing can even exist). But if the rock seeds from Mars and Earth are this widely scattered, then much of our solar system could be "contaminated" with DNA or even microbes themselves. We might have to travel to another solar system to find something extremely alien.

On the other hand, planetary cross pollination suggests a whole new life process which might make life on other planets and moons far more likely than it might otherwise be.

So I guess the news isn't good or bad, it just opens different possibilities.

Very interesting stuff. Thanks Edgar.

By "it" I referred to the specified rock named Bounce. We already know the existence of rocks on Earth evidently coming from Mars.

Since we already know that Mars rocks made it to Earth, does that make it more likely that Mars "seeded" Earth, and not the other way around?

Discovery offers clues to origin of life

[Another interesting aspect to the research, said Muehlenbachs, is that the rock type they studied is the same as on the surface of Mars. "Martian rocks would also have glass that would retain a record of life activity-we could learn a lot from them as well."]