Life found 2.4km deep in the earth

[Wertbag]

Always amazed at where you can find life.  Doesn't matter what pressure, temperature, environment or amount of light, there is always something that sets up home there.  Makes me hopeful for the search on other planets, if life is this hardy then who knows where it has got started...

http://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/techandscience/zombie-bacteria-hint-life-on-earth-began-deep-underground/ar-BBQN2fa?ocid=ientp

"The lifeforms are so numerous that their mass may be up to 385 times that of all humans"

 

[pantheory]

This is a really cool discovery. They have always known of such microbes deep within the Earth's crust, beneath the Earth's surface and oceans  up to 3 miles deep into the mantle. But not until recently have they been able to determine the amount, mass, and almost countless unknown varieties of it.

 

To me this is more interesting because it means that we someday could find such life inside of asteroids, meteors, comets, etc. If so there would be several possibilities of its origin. Either life could have been blasted off the Earth or another planet like Mars where it could have originally evolved, or it could have originally evolved within comets, asteroids, etc. at the beginnings of of solar system,. It also might have even evolved within another stellar system before the sun, or it could have evolved from the great collection of interstellar masses of varying sizes and chemistry that eventually created our sun and planets, as well as maybe many of our neighboring stars, or maybe even a broader scope than that as being the first form of life in our local part of the galaxy. 

 

The key, I think, will be to look at the complexity of this underground life. If it is as complex as the simplest surface life on Earth it probably would be too complex to have been near to a beginning form of life. This is what I expect will be the case; it will be as complicated as surface life.

 

Of course it would be extremely thrilling if we found life off of the Earth somewhere. Underground on the moon perhaps where there is water which would be a good starting place to look. After that similar underground locations on Mars, or on the moon. Both locations have underground water, CO2 and other gases and possibly heat remnants, locations that might be great for life to exist. But even better IMO would be if we were to find life within comets. All comets by definition have water, so-called dirty snow balls. The interior of the largest comets might be a good place for very slow metabolizing life to exist. The surface mass of the largest comets could protect the interior from cosmic rays that could destroy life. If we found this kind of life, and if it were found to be more simple than Earth life, then it could have been the source of the beginnings of Earth life when the solar system was developing,  when asteroids, meteors, and comets rained profusely down upon the Earth after preliminary Earth and Martian oceans were forming.

 

 

[Tsathoggua9]

Fascinating! I enjoy hearing about such discoveries. It just makes me that more excited over the prospect of extraterrestrial life. I figure that it is just a matter of time before we confirm its existence.

[♦ nivek ♦]

Article and pan's add-on is fascinating.  Things of exploration just show me how really little we know and then how much more we have to find.

 

kL