posted on Jan, 14 2005 @ 09:51 AM
I sure hope this year's the year, but there's no real reason to suspect that to be the case. I suspect the reasons why the phrases "how life
began" and "searching for extra terrestrial life" are being said a lot is because we are beginning to enter a period of relatively intense scrutiny
of our solar system, case in point the huygens module that touched down on saturn hopefully successfully. The mars rovers, deep impact, and even with
improvements in photographic detail of the bodies in our system showing things like ice, active geological formation and other points of interest.
Bearing in mind, that the search for extra-terrestrial life is all life, not just intelligent life. They could find primitie single cell organisms
beneath the ice on Europa if they send a probe there which i hope they will one day. That would be a very good indicator as to how life began because
they conditions on Europa mimic those that happened during various points in time throughout the earths history, and if they can gain information
regarding the environment, elements present etc, it would be very useful evidence for us as we try to work out exactly how and when life emerged on
Earth.