Sean Eddy wrote:
> Not that the hypothesis is testable, mind you.
Well, maybe it is. Given the Hubble Telescope and suchlike
instruments, you might *just* be able to detect blue planets around
something like Tau Ceti.
If you find *any* planet with a strong oxygen signal in its spectrum,
that's pretty strong evidence for life right then and there -- free oxygen
being as chemically unstable as it is.
The chief question then, I imagine, would be the age of the sun around
which the planet was orbiting. If it's (say) 2 Gy older than ours, you've
got at least a vaguely plausible source from which microbes might have
arisen.
--Erich Schwarz
