LETTER: Fantastic tales of life on Mars

Apparently the minerals needed to form ribonucleic acid, one of the basic building blocks of life, would have dissolved in the oceans of the early Earth. It takes boron and oxidised molybdenum to assemble atoms into life-forming molecules and the earth at the time simply did not have sufficient quantities of either mineral. But because Mars is drier and more oxidising, these minerals could have originated there and then have come to earth on a Martian meteorite.

I was most surprised to learn that the early earth was such an unlikely place for life to begin.

Is it really more likely that we originally came from Mars? Or maybe ‘Dartmoorkid’ has a point in making the comment on the BBC website: “This is now getting so fantastic that I have decided to take the easier and more credible option and believe in God.”

Tim Carter

Brighton Road Baptist Church