Martian meteorite
McCarrick, Allan (MCCARRIC@mailgate.navsses.navy.mil)
Fri, 20 Jun 1997 15:15 EST Two recent articles (6 months or so) in Science have touched on the
Martian meteorite discussion. The earlier one discussed the mechanisms
and probabilities of interplanetary transfer. Mars-to-earth transfer had
a much higher probability than earth-to-Mars for several reasons:
earth's thicker atmosphere (frictional heating of incoming body and
ejected material), earth's locally deeper gravitational well due to its
greater mass (higher energy required, more heating), and the uphill
gravitational potential from earth to mars.
The second discussion touched on the size of the "fossil microbes".
Apparently there are known living things of that size range, as well as
fragments of larger bacteria that have the appearance of those "microbes"
Al