>>17995653 (OP)
The Mars fossil is fun and interesting, but it brings with it the terrible and ominous implication that Mars went through an Archean period, but then *everyone fucking died forever*.
I'm most excited to see if Martian critters are related to us or not, if they share the same LUCA cells we have in our bodies. It would be very wholesome, and weirdly creationists on a grand scale, if all life in this solar system stemmed from a single origin.
>>17995662
They tested that rock for an entire year trying to disprove it and it all read back as, "this is probably a germ fossil". The only way to debunk it at this point is to take it home and study it further.