This conclusion was reached, in particular, by the head of the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution (USA), biochemist Stephen Benner.
“With the same initial components, Mars would be a better place for life to arise than Earth, which was too flooded for the chemistry of biological molecules to become stable,” Dr. Benner explains his point of view. - Without at least occasional dry lands, chemistry, which is destined to begin life, would not even be able to work, since the molecules that make genetics a reality are chemically very unstable. Especially in the aquatic environment.
This creates an unusual logical dilemma, because life, at least as we know it, needs water. On the other hand, as Benner points out, how is it possible that the chemicals needed for life, which are so unstable in an aquatic environment, could give rise to something even more complex than themselves?
The dilemma resolves itself if we assume that life arose and evolved in places prone to frequent droughts. RNA and its building blocks may well be stable in terrestrial conditions if you place them where water is more of a> luxury, say, in Death Valley, in which rare showers carrying, in addition to water, the simplest organic molecules from the atmosphere, are replaced by periods a real drought. It is in such conditions, if there are building blocks for obtaining at least the simplest RNA, and Life appears.
And everything would be fine, but then it's time to admit to ourselves that we are aliens who came to a stranger (the world and began to live in it … Strange? But the fact is that scientists modeling the early Earth believe that the planet is not had not a single dry place. It was a water world. So how could life arise on Earth if there were no swamps on its map of that time? There was no place on our planet suitable for the emergence of life "from scratch"! The nearest place - on neighboring Mars. Today it is completely dry. However, as scientists believe, a long time ago, in the deep past, when the Earth was simply choked with water, the surface of the Red Planet only had areas covered with liquid water. But it was enough for the birth of living organisms.
Astronomers, astrobiologists, physicists and many others have broken so many copies in disputes, spent so much money trying to answer the simple question of whether there was life on Mars. Well, you and I, by means of simple inferences, without leaving our chair, have convincingly proved: yes, there was! And you don't need to fly anywhere. Moreover, on the basis of logical constructions using scientific facts available to the general public, we substantiated our extraterrestrial origin (another long and heatedly debated issue, and, mind you, neither the supporters of creationism, nor the fighters for Darwin's legacy were hurt).
In addition, it was calculated that once in the atmosphere of Mars there was no less free oxygen than on Earth. The red color of the planet told the scientists about this.
“The red Martian soil consists of iron oxides and hydroxides with an admixture of ferruginous clays and calcium and magnesium sulfates,” says Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences, Professor Alexander Portnov. - On Earth, soils of this type are also found quite often. They are called red weathering crusts. They are formed in a warm climate, an abundance of water and free oxygen in the atmosphere.
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It is estimated that all the oxygen in the earth's atmosphere - 1200 trillion tons - green plants produce by geological standards almost instantly - in 3700 years! But if the terrestrial vegetation dies, free oxygen will disappear very quickly: it will again combine with organic matter, enter into the composition of carbon dioxide, and also oxidize iron in rocks. The atmosphere of Mars now has only 0.1 percent oxygen, but 95 percent carbon dioxide; the rest is nitrogen and argon. For the transformation of Mars into the "Red Planet", the current amount of oxygen in its atmosphere would be clearly insufficient. Consequently, "rust" in such large quantities appeared there not now, but much earlier.
Let's try to calculate how much free oxygen had to be removed from the atmosphere of Mars for the formation of Martian red flowers? The surface of Mars is 28 percent of the Earth's surface. To form the weathering crust with a total thickness of 1 kilometer, about 5000 trillion tons of free oxygen were removed from the atmosphere of Mars. So there was definitely life there!