Living for millions of years is possible

[Todd Allen]

for zombie bacteria...

The discovery of what has been termed a "subterranean Galapagos" was announced by the Deep Carbon Observatory Tuesday, which said many of the lifeforms have lifespans of millions of years.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/11/world/deep-carbon-observatory-zombie-carbon-intl/index.html

and the quoted report from the Deep Carbon Observatory:

https://deepcarbon.net/life-deep-earth-totals-15-23-billion-tonnes-carbon

[Gordo]

I'm skeptical of their (unexplained) lifespan estimates, but interesting content nonetheless, you would think mars' interior should be teeming with life unless Earth is some miraculous exception (given that Mars' surface was carved out by water and water is very likely below the surface).

[Saul]

I believe it.  But I don't think they have a good QOL.

😉

[Todd Allen]

17 hours ago, Gordo said:

I'm skeptical of their (unexplained) lifespan estimates

I was wondering about that myself.  I'd like to know how one measures how long something has been alive.  I've know radio-carbon dating is fairly good for measuring how long something has been dead, assuming the living organism was largely composed of recently atmospheric carbon which probably isn't true of these bacteria.  So it probably involves some other radio isotope(s) but I don't have a clue which ones or how/why.

 

17 hours ago, Gordo said:

you would think mars' interior should be teeming with life

Perhaps it is?   I don't think we have managed to probe very deeply there yet.