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Could Fossils of Ancient Life From Earth Reside On the Moon?
MarkWhittington writes Does the moon contain fossils of billions of years old organisms from Earth? That theory has been laid out in recent research at the Imperial College of London, reported in a story in Air and Space Magazine by Dr. Paul Spudis, a lunar and planetary geologist. The implications for science and future lunar exploration are profound. Scientists have known for decades that planets and moons in the Solar System exchange material due to impacts. A large meteor smashes into a planet, Mars for example, and blasts material into space. That material eventually finds itself landing on another planet, Earth in this case. Mars rocks have been discovered on Earth since the 1980s. Other rocks from the moon and, it is surmised, Mercury have also been found, blasted into space billions of years ago to eventually find themselves on Earth.
Could Fossils of Ancient Life From Earth Reside On the Moon?
I'm sure they could, if we took some there.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
The issue is we'd likely need to be digging for decades to find something that might have something, if it hasn't been broken down so much from high radiation in solar storms.
It would be a very long search for that needle.
Even on Earth as we find fossils, these are just fossils that are LUCKY enough to have survived all that time. The majority of skeletons aren't lucky and degrade.
There are very likely large numbers of life we will never* know about that filled various niches, was the in-betweens of one lifeform and another as it evolved over millions of years.
We have also just barely scratched the surface. The deeper we go, the older we are finding. (especially in the cold pole regions)
Just recently we found that cave with stupidly old stuff in it, several billion years old if I remember.
There are likely millions of little caves like this scattered all over the planet where life has been hidden away and protected .
Also aliens. And pyramids.
*unless we make time machines.
You wanna be pedantic? I'll bite.
The Moon is made of both Earth and Theia protoplanet that slammed into it. Not an asteroid, it was Mars-sized.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Actually most of the things you mention have a positive ROI too. Just look what happens if you don't spend in those areas.
The problem is 1) that the US is spending its money inefficiently compared to other countries and 2) that some of its citizens who could easily afford to contribute more aren't willing to do so and the public is unwilling to force them.