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+--- Thread: Research Microbes found in a meteorite crater may offer clues to life on Mars (natural design) (/thread-19286.html)
Microbes found in a meteorite crater may offer clues to life on Mars (natural design) - C C - Nov 29, 2025
https://knowridge.com/2025/11/living-microbes-found-in-a-meteorite-crater-may-offer-clues-to-life-on-mars/
EXCERPTS: Scientists have discovered living, methane-producing microbes deep inside a massive meteorite impact crater in Sweden, and the find could change the way researchers think about where life can survive — on Earth and beyond.
The study focused on the Siljan crater, one of Europe’s largest known impact structures, formed when a meteorite struck the planet hundreds of millions of years ago.
[...] This is the first time living methane-producing organisms have been confirmed in an impact crater on Earth, showing that these dramatic geological sites can become long-term habitats for life under the right conditions.
[..] While the technical details are complex, the key point is simple: these organisms are uniquely adapted to survive in a dark, deep, high-pressure environment where there is no sunlight. Instead of using light for energy, they rely entirely on chemical reactions with the surrounding rock and fluids.
This discovery has important implications for Mars. Scientists have detected small bursts of methane in the Martian atmosphere over the years, and some of these areas are located near ancient impact craters.
While methane can be produced by non-living geological processes, it is also often linked to biological activity on Earth.
The fact that microbes can thrive in Earth’s impact craters strengthens the idea that similar environments on Mars might once have supported — or could still support — microbial life beneath the surface... (MORE - missing details)
RE: Microbes found in a meteorite crater may offer clues to life on Mars (natural design) - Zinjanthropos - Nov 30, 2025
Can imagine just how painstaking a process it might be to search for and possibly find a revivable microbe, or even a dead one, on Earth or within a meteorite fragment. Although it was 25 years ago, a 250m yr old microbe of Earthly origin was apparently revived. Whether or not a meteorite might contain such a specimen from another world is intriguing to say the least. Earthbound spores I have read, still living after 100m years were found in a bee encased in amber.
From year 2000
https://www.cnn.com/2000/NATURE/10/18/oldest.microbe/
Always wondered if any of the rock fragments catapulted into space from the dinosaur killing asteroid that struck Earth 65 m yrs ago contained microbes, eventually making their way back? Or to Mars or any other solar system planets and moons?
RE: Microbes found in a meteorite crater may offer clues to life on Mars (natural design) - C C - Nov 30, 2025
(Nov 30, 2025 05:51 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: [...] Always wondered if any of the rock fragments catapulted into space from the dinosaur killing asteroid that struck Earth 65 m yrs ago contained microbes, eventually making their way back? Or to Mars or any other solar system planets and moons?
Lots of material from Mars has reached Earth. The latter has a much deeper gravity well that objects have to escape. But researchers simulated the path of fragments from the Chixculub impact, and learned that several may have made it even to the outer Solar System within 10 million years.