Chapter 1629 [Mars 3.5 billion years ago]

In Fang Hong's previous life, humans not only confirmed the existence of life in the underground ocean of Enceladus, but also the structure of life is more complex and diverse than scientists predicted. Before it was confirmed, it was generally believed that the existence of life was only microorganisms.

But in fact, the life body at the seabed heat source of Enceladus has evolved to a centimeter-level size, which is not a microorganism.

It has also been confirmed that the ecological environment at the seabed heat source of Enceladus is covered with a thick layer of fungal carpet, which is surprisingly similar to the early evolutionary stage of ancient marine organisms on Earth and has convergent evolutionary properties.

With in-depth exploration and research, scientists in Fang Hong's previous life confirmed that the life on Enceladus is older than that on Earth, and also confirmed that the life on Earth is not its own origin, but the life seeds of Enceladus were sown to Earth through asteroids.

Moreover, in Fang Hong's previous life, not only did he confirm the existence of life on Enceladus, but before confirming the existence of life on Enceladus, he confirmed that life also appeared on Mars billions of years ago, and it was very prosperous and had evolved into a very complex life form.

It's just that the life on Mars did not evolve into intelligent life, and even the life on Mars was completely extinct before landing from the ocean. The reason for the mass extinction of life on Mars was a series of chain reactions caused by the cooling of the core of the planet.

Mars's size and mass are too small after all, which makes the core of Mars cool too quickly and cannot be maintained like the Earth to this day. After the core cools, the global magnetic field of Mars also disappears. It should be noted that the magnetic field can effectively shield the high-energy particles of the solar wind and protect the atmosphere from the erosion of the solar wind.

Without the protection of the magnetic field, the atmosphere of Mars disappears, and the global ocean on the surface of the planet is constantly evaporated and stripped, and finally blown away by the solar wind into the vast universe. The evolution of life on Mars ended before landing, and Mars eventually evolved into what it is today.

But the core of Mars did not cool 3 billion years ago. At that time, Mars was a world full of vitality. If the core had not cooled and continued to this day, perhaps the life on Mars could eventually evolve into intelligent life.

Fang Hong clearly remembered that in his previous life, humans explored Mars through a series of projects and found that life on Mars has not been completely extinct. There are still microorganisms in the strata of some areas. When they landed on Mars for further exploration, they dug out fossils of ancient Martian organisms from the strata. The measured age was more than 3 billion years old, which is a direct proof that Mars was a world of flourishing life 3 billion years ago.

And it proves that the "convergent evolution" attribute of life also applies to this natural law between alien planets.

And in subsequent scientific research, there is a lot of evidence that the origin of life on Earth is the seeds of life brought from Mars 3.5 billion years ago, and today's life on Earth is the continuation of life on Mars.

However, Martian life did not originate from Mars, but from Enceladus. This has been recognized by scientists in Fang Hong's previous life.

However, there is a huge controversy about whether life on Earth originated from the continuation of life on Mars or Enceladus. Scientists have argued for more than ten years and have not reached a consensus. Fang Hong has been reborn and is still arguing.

Some scientists believe that life on Earth originated from Enceladus. The eruption of the planet's ice volcano sprayed the basic life structure on the seabed into outer space, which happened to be carried by asteroids or comets passing by on the way. Eventually, the asteroid or comet flew towards the inner solar system and was finally captured by the Earth's gravity, thus bringing the fire of life to the Earth.

Life on Mars was also brought to Mars from Enceladus in the same way. Mars was more suitable for the evolution of life more than 3 billion years ago, so it promoted the prosperity of life on Mars.

After all, the solar system billions of years ago was not as stable as it is today, and asteroids flew around everywhere.

But another group of scientists who oppose this view believe that the transmission link of life was first transmitted from Enceladus to Mars, and then from Mars to Earth 3.5 billion years ago, allowing Martian life to continue, evolve and prosper on Earth.

This group of scientists who support the theory of the origin of Earth life on Mars believe that the probability of two asteroids carrying life from distant Enceladus to Earth and Mars at the same time is greater than the probability of Martian life being transmitted to Earth.

However, the scientists who support that life on Earth originated from Enceladus believe that if this is true, then there should be a large number of frozen microbial remains scattered in Saturn's E ring, which should have been discovered by the "Cassini" probe long ago. In-depth research on Saturn's E ring also found that there is not much enrichment of life structure substances.

For this reason, the two academic schools of thought argued fiercely about whether life on Earth originated from Mars or Enceladus, and neither convinced the other. The two schools were still arguing until Fang Hong was reborn.

Fang Hong estimated that after the discovery of the fossil site of ancient life on Mars in this life, and the confirmation of the existence of life in the underground ocean of Enceladus, the scientific community in this life would probably continue to argue about whether life on Earth originated from Mars or Enceladus.

Scientists are very stubborn and concerned about whether life on Earth originated from Mars or Enceladus, but Fang Hong doesn't care where it originated. Now Fang Hong only cares about the existence of alien life, and that's enough.

Proving the existence of extraterrestrial life, even if it is just a single-celled organism, is of great significance to the construction and popularization of the value of "a community with a shared future for mankind", so Fang Hong will spare no effort to promote space exploration.

Obviously, the Western "Cassini" probe did not find evidence of life on Enceladus, otherwise it would have become explosive news.

For the scientists present, whether there is life on Enceladus and Mars is still unknown, but in Fang Hong's eyes, it is known and confirmed, and the only thing missing is solid evidence.

In the "Nine Days of Stars" project, Fang Hong only focused on investing and prioritized the "Mars Exploration" and "Saturn Exploration" projects, putting the relatively closer Jupiter exploration aside. One of his hidden purposes that he did not tell outsiders was to find evidence of the existence of life.

The next mission goal in the field of space exploration is also very clear, which is to find evidence of the existence of extraterrestrial life, solid evidence, and then make this explosive news public, in order to establish an absolute mainstream position for the construction of the value of "a community with a shared future for mankind".

The Saturn exploration mission was launched as early as 2016. Now four years have passed, and it is still on the way to Saturn. Its main task is to explore Enceladus and Titan. It will still take about 4 years to reach Saturn, that is, around 2024. After entering Saturn's orbit, it will probably take a long time to produce actual results.

Obviously, there is nothing to be expected from the Saturn exploration mission in the next five years.

Fang Hong is now most concerned about the Mars exploration mission, which is closer to the earth, because this project will soon enter Mars' orbit on February 10, which is 12 days later.

If we are lucky, we can produce major results this year, and even find microorganisms in the Martian strata. It is not impossible to find fossils of ancient organisms on Mars more than 3 billion years ago if we are lucky.

... (End of this chapter)