Just note that DNA itself is code and completely useless without an interpreter/compiler. The DNA is just a storage mechanism, the true complexity relies on the cell.<p>See: <a href="http://ds9a.nl/amazing-dna/" rel="nofollow">http://ds9a.nl/amazing-dna/</a><p>If we lost all cells but had DNA, we could not do anything with it. The same way that source code is useless if you don't have a compiler.
<i>Temperatures on the exterior of the rocket reached as high as 115.4 degrees Celsius during liftoff and 128.3 degrees Celsius during atmospheric reentry</i><p>Doesn't that re-entry temperature seem way too low? I get that its probably a rear-facing surface, but still...
The recent Cosmos remake has a good episode that touches on this. I think it's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Immortals_%28Cosmos:_A_Spacetime_Odyssey%29" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Immortals_%28Cosmos:_A_Spac...</a><p>One theory set forth is that earlier in Earth's history, while bacteria were first evolving meteors would periodically strike and extinguish life, but cast rocks with dormant bacteria into space that would later re-enter and re-seed the planet after the dust settled. First time I heard the idea but it's intriguing, and segues into the whole idea of panspermia.
I've wondered this for many years: could the idea that life originated here on Earth be the final geocentrism?<p>This is really quite interesting too:<p><a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/view/513781/moores-law-and-the-origin-of-life/" rel="nofollow">http://www.technologyreview.com/view/513781/moores-law-and-t...</a><p>All this is pure hypothesis and speculation until we can find some life out there and engage in some comparative analysis. If we found life elsewhere and it appeared to trace back to a common ancestor, then this would suggest that life originated far back in the history of the cosmos rather than independently in many places. Perhaps life -- if interpreted as a phase of matter -- arose along with all the other phases of matter during the early cooling of the universe?
This could make more plausible the theory that life on Earth is coming from space and then it evolved from there, rather than being born from scratch on Earth.
Proof we possibly originated from extraterrestrial life!<p><i>edit</i> oh, grow up, downvoters. panspermia is a real concept <a href="http://www.livescience.com/13363-7-theories-origin-life.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.livescience.com/13363-7-theories-origin-life.html</a>