Life on Mars?

NASA scientists are back with a new analysis of the meteorite originally from Mars discovered back in 1996 that they believed showed evidence of fossilized bacteria-like life.  The new analysis, using newly-available technology, shows that alternative explanations involving chemical processes are not likely explanations.  This leaves fossilized living creatures as the only explanation still standing.

This won't close the case for science.  There will have to be much more evidence for living creatures on Mars before it becomes a generally accepted notion.  But if life did in fact exist on Mars (and possibly still does today), then this leads naturally to a couple of very intriguing lines of thought.  First, that possibly life is far more common than we have heretofore believed (if it arose independently on two planets in a single star system, then surely it will have arisen commonly in other star systems).  Second, that possibly life has been “seeded” by something completely outside our star system – perhaps something as simple as chirally-sorted amino acids being distributed by junk floating around in space, or cosmic rays turning out to be the key to amino acid formation.  And of course that latter line of thought will lead some to immediately assume intervention by alien civilizations or deities...