Dr. David McKay, Astrobiologist. Photo: NASA
There’s a buzz out there amongst astrobiologists that before this year is out, Dr. David McKay and his exobiology research team are going to announce that they have definitively identified fossilized organisms in meteorites from Mars that have been collected on earth.
Martian microorganisms. Martians. Real Martians. That bubble of perception that life exists only here on Earth will have been burst.
The next step, of course, will be to design Mars missions to try and determine if any of those organisms have survived Mars’ harsh and extreme history in an environment in which only extremophiles (as we now know flourish on Earth) could survive.
Martian Meteorite NAKHLA2058. Electron Microscopy Photo of Possible Fossilized Life. Photo: NASA
All technical considerations aside, if and when this announcement comes, the theological implications, as well as our geo-centric Christology, will no longer be the topic of idle speculation but confront us with a reality that demands a response to the world.
Heliocentric Model, Detail from Copernicus' "Revolutions of the Celestial Sphere." Photo: Glasgow University
Since 1543, when Copernicus’ De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Sphere) was published, we have been attempting to unify our Christology with our Cosmology. The results have been, in my opinion, at best, mixed.
The announcement of alien life, even microbial, requires a new conversation with a new set of rules. It shall be a heady time, indeed. Ours is the generation that broke the shackles of gravity and set off across the Solar System. If, too, we are to be the ones who confirm that life’s seed has been sown across the expanse of space like the Sower in one of Jesus’ parables, we have much work to do.
Here are three links:
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1001/09marslife/
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2010/01/11/2169791.aspx
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/47114/proof-life-mars-come-year.html
Sower with Setting Sun by Vincent van Gogh, 1888. Photo: Kroller-Muller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands.
I think most people would shrug and say ‘thats interesting’. Even if a ‘flying saucer’ with INTELIGENT life landed on the whitehouse lawn, people would quickly get over it as exopolitics becomes integrated with mainstream.
Its an ancient universe, and we are a young species. I believe that a pertinent question regarding inteligent life is not ‘where are they’, but ‘why are they hiding’?
Mix up Drake’s equation with Star Trek’s prime directive and what do you get? “Avoid planet earth. They are a bunch of violent apes with digital watches. Hide!”
I’d find the facts interesting (being a scientist) but probably not shocking. I don’t read Jonoh’s response as facetious- I agree.