My corner: An extraterrestrial possibility

The most debated talk of this century is: does life exist on any other planet or anywhere else in the universe? And what if I say it exists or it used to exist. Let us dive into some scientific findings and try to join the dots spread over billions of years.

Four and a half billion years ago a rock was formed on Mars by some volcanic processes. Half a billion years later this rock was broken into small pieces by a meteorite impact. Some ground water also entered the rock. And sixteen million years ago an asteroid hit Mars somewhere near where this rock was. The impact there threw pieces of rocks into space. A few pieces of rocks which orbited the Sun came closer to Earth and crashed into an Antarctic glacier. Over 13,000 years later it reached the Allan hills region of Antarctica and was buried inside ice. In 1984, this meteorite was discovered and was named ALH84001.

A team led by David McKay of the American space organisation, NASA, suggested that there seemed to be some signs of life that might have existed on the rocks in some bygone era. The meteorite had some organic molecules of the same family as naphthalene balls. When bacteria decays, such compounds are produced.

Many meteorites do not have such compounds. The meteorite has iron oxide, the sort which some bacteria on Earth excreted. It has iron sulphide which is produced by anaerobic bacteria.

The meteorite has some balls of carbonate material which may be formed by some living things. On the other hand all Earth bacteria are 100 times larger than this material.

What makes scientists hopeful is that some of the other items mentioned are within cracks and the cracks could only have been formed before the meteorite crashed in Antarctica.

So may be the signs of bacterial life are from Mars.

In 1976, the Viking Spacecraft failed to find any such bacteria on Mars but maybe they landed in the lifeless part of Mars or maybe the bacteria were present million of years ago.

The Russian government claims that a child named Boris possessed a vast knowledge of planets at an age of one and when he grew up he claimed himself to be from Mars in previous birth.

The most thrilling thing is that he stated he visited Earth as a Martian in the Egyptian era and revealed that there was some secret passage near the ear of Sphinx.

When the archaeological discoveries were made there was actually a hidden passage near the Sphinx’s ear.

All these thrilling bits of information culled from different sources make me wonder about the existence of life in other parts of the universe and how it would change our lives here on Earth. many of you may find these ideas far fetched, but haven’t so many incredible findings emerged over the years?

Aarya Julka, Class IX, Sacred Heart Senior Sec School, Sidhpur, Dharamsala