Did Life Originate on Mars?


One of the premises of my upcoming novel Heirs of the Ancients is that life originated on Mars. I just ran across a fascinating article that actually seems to support at least part of my plot! 

To quote from the article: 

Mars formed before Earth did. Early in Martian history when Mars was cooling down, Mars would have had a "hospitable" environment before Earth.

"If life was going to start anywhere it might start first on Mars," Asphaug said. "We don't know what the requirement is — you know, if it required something super special like the existence of a moon or some factors that are unique to the Earth — but just in terms of what place had liquid water first, that would have been Mars.

I won't give away more than what I've already said, but it is always so weird to write a fictional account of some event and then read days or weeks later about some scientific ideas on the same subject! 

The article appeared in Salon.com. I encourage you to peruse it while you wait for me to finish Heirs of the Ancients. While you wait, you could also pick up the prequel, A Trio of Worlds.

Happy reading everyone!

1 comment:

  1. Hi James - that's where sci-fi, or Speculative Fiction, really comes into its own, doesn't it? I tend to write about items I see in the news or some scientific article/blog. My first book featured gene therapy. My next is about a cataclysmic extinction level event and is set 300 years afterwards. I love those scenarios that have some basis in reality or fact. :-)

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