Global warming doesn’t offer much in the way of good news, but a warming Arctic may have uncovered new rocky strata helping researchers find the oldest fossil yet recovered. Up to now scientists have found chemical signatures strongly suggestive of life in ancient rocks about 3.8 three billion years old. But this is the first direct confirmation:
Scientists have found the oldest known remnant of life, a fossil dating back a staggering 3.7 billion years. If confirmed, the date would support the theory that life took root in just a blink of an eye after the planet’s birth. Such early life would also make life on Mars seem less of a long shot. The newfound remains consist of a layer of rock that, to the untutored eye, looks, well ... like a layer of rock. Scientists say it’s actually a stromatolite, a mineral structure created by the busywork of countless microorganisms.
We can infer that life was widespread in Earth’s primeval oceans right after the end of Late Heavy Bombardment, a process that would have sterilized the surface over and over, lasting from about 4.2 billion years ago to about 3.8 billion years ago. That makes it more likely there was life on Mars long ago (and maybe Venus as well), because we know Mars had a thicker atmosphere along with standing lakes and running rivers at that time.
- Heart attack patients are living a lot longer now thanks to stents and cardio angioplasty. In fact, I liked the stent so much I bought two of ‘em!
- A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded during a routine test on a Kennedy Space Center launch pad Thursday morning. No one was injured, but the mishap puts the company’s ambitious timetable at risk.
- Why do astronomers think there is a Planet Nine from Outer Space? It started when astronomers noticed that several Trans-Neptunian Objects share too many orbital characteristics in common to be explained by chance. It may be bolstered by finding asteroids in weird orbits perpendicular to the plane where most planets orbit the sun, called the ecliptic. And now, it seems to help explain why the planetary ecliptic is, on average, inclined a few degrees to the equator of the sun. An idea that unites multiple observations under a single explanatory framework is powerful in science. Now we just have to find out if the damn thing exists ...