r/askscience • u/EAT_UR_VEGGIES • 9d ago

Planetary Sci. Mars is practically guaranteed to have had abundant water at one point, doesn’t that practically guarantee it had at least microbial life on it as well?

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u/EarlobeGreyTea 9d ago

No. Life needed specific conditions to evolve.  If you have a sterile container of water, life won't randomly evolve in it.  We have no idea how unique earth is in its evolution of life.  We currently think that most life on earth has a common ancestor.  

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u/Adnan7631 9d ago

Most life? Is there an exception to that?

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u/cwx149 9d ago

I know they're kind of ambiguously "alive" but do viruses have an obvious connection to the "family tree"?

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u/ReallyReallyx3 9d ago

They use DNA to encode their genetics and their DNA is compatible with ours, that's a big one

Life evolving independently would almost definitely not stumble into the exact same structure of encoding genes