How the First Life on Earth Survived Its Biggest Threat--Water
Print Life might have begun in bodies of water on land, perhaps in craters similar to Canada’s Lake Manicouagan, formed by an ancient impact. Credit: Planet Observer, Universal Images Group and Alamy Advertisement On 18 February next year, a NASA spacecraft will plummet through the Martian atmosphere, fire its retro-rockets to break its fall and then lower a six-wheeled rover named Perseverance to the surface. If all goes according to plan, the mission will land in Jezero Crater, a 45-kilometre-wide gash near the planet’s equator that might once have held a lake of liquid water. Amon...