News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Space Is Full of Planets, and Most of Them Don't Even Have Stars. Parent comment

Re:Space Is Full of Planets, and Most of Them Don't Even Hav... by sandworm101 on Wednesday May 30, 2018 @10:40AM (#17187996)
One tree (us) either appeared first and dominated resources, or we wiped our the other trees. Evolutionary forces work at levels above species. Two trees can compete with each other.

If this happened it did so at the microbe level. Physical evidence would be extraordinarily difficult. If we did find evidence of another tree it would be so 'alien' to our tree that might mistakenly call it extraterrestrial.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Space Is Full of Planets, and Most of Them Don't Even Hav... by ASalazarMX on Wednesday May 30, 2018 @11:41AM (#17188597)
And since panspermia is necessarily done with microbes, they would get outnumbered and munched by our microbes if they arrived after our tree dominated our planet. Unless other planets happened to give birth to hardier, more virulent microbes, then welcome Andromeda Strain.
[ Parent | on HN ]