John Matson, in an article on scientificamerican.com, has written about extraterrestrial dust containing prebiotic compounds (compounds which, in the right conditions, could potentially form simple single cell organisms). The following is an excerpt from the article:
A new analysis in the May 7 issue of Science comes from a France-based team working at Antarctica's Concordia base that uncovered well-preserved meteorite samples from beneath the surface. The researchers dug up snow from decades past, which fell before the site had a potentially contaminating human presence. Therein they found so-called micrometeorites—tiny specks just a fraction of a millimeter across that nonetheless carry important clues to the birth and evolution of the solar system.
The appearance of new life forms whether terrestrial, extra-terrestrial or synthesized in a lab, provide possibilities for a range of stories for cinema and fiction. The life forms could be useful, harmful, controlled by a select few, widely dispersed and beyond the control of governments, etc.
NASA has calculated, to the precise second, when Voyager 1 will be exactly
one light-day from Earth: 2:16 a.m. on 18 November 2026, at a distance of
16,094,799,096 miles — a number that would have been science fiction when
the probe launched in 1977
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[image: Artist concept of a Voyager spacecraft traveling through
interstellar space]
NASA has reduced one of the strangest milestones in human engineering ...
12 hours ago
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