Hank: if life is found on another planet, we will quickly tell whether it is related to Earth life (2020)
prediction · status: unresolved · last event: repeated (2025-09-12) · owner: Hank
In September 2020 Hank wrote that if life were found on another planet, we would quickly be able to tell whether it is related to life on Earth. He said much the same in September 2025 about possible life on Mars.
About: extraterrestrial life
| date | event | what | video |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-09-18 | predicted | The description says that if life is found on another planet, we will be able to figure out pretty quickly whether it is related to life on Earth. | They Say it Gets Colder video description |
| 2025-09-12 | repeated | Hank says we could probably tell whether Martian life had its own biochemistry or shared a single origin with Earth life. (hedged) | This Might Actually be Happening 00:12:31 |
What is said about it
7 statements, by date (the events above are the turns of the thread; these are the details).
- 2020-09-18 · They Say it Gets Colder — Hank says Enceladus and Europa, icy moons of gas giants, definitely have giant oceans of liquid water beneath their icy surfaces. — 00:00:29
- 2020-09-18 · They Say it Gets Colder — Hank says Mars and Venus were probably habitable for a long time; Mars is in the habitable zone, Venus is not. (hedged) — 00:00:29
- 2025-09-12 · This Might Actually be Happening — Hank says planets swap material through impact ejecta, so life might have moved from Earth to Mars, Mars to Earth, or from elsewhere to both. (speculative) — 00:13:00
- 2025-09-12 · This Might Actually be Happening — Hank says Earth's oldest life evidence is limited by its oldest rocks; Mars could preserve early steps Earth erased and help explain how chemistry became biology. (hedged) — 00:13:37
- 2025-09-12 · This Might Actually be Happening — Hank says Mars still has internal heat: its most recent volcanic eruption was millions of years ago or less, not billions; there is probably still subsurface water. — 00:14:06
- 2025-09-12 · This Might Actually be Happening — Hank says that if Mars once had life and has warm subsurface water, it seems entirely possible that living microbes are still in Mars, which would be so cool. (hedged) — 00:14:37
- 2025-09-12 · This Might Actually be Happening — Hank says we would have to make sure not to kill Martian life: extincting a whole biosphere with our well-evolved microbes, the ultimate invasive species, would be far worse than extincting a species. — 00:14:37