This story completes my trilogy of blogs on a loose 'relationship' theme where "One is a magic number" if you are a 'Desulforudis Audaxviator' (Bold Traveller) bug, which is a recently discovered form of life which may be the the 'loneliest living species known to science', and was found 2.8km (1.74 miles) beneath the surface of the Earth, inside a gold mine near Johannesburg.
This form of life, lives in its own universe with just its compatriots for company, and lives in total darkness at 60C (140F) heat, using water, hydrogen and sulphate for its energy needs.
This discovery almost certainly means that life can, and will develop anywhere in the Universe where it can, because this is the second life form found on Earth that has developed independently from our Solar powered one.
In the last few years, we have also found that bacterium life appears to have developed independently from us, in the superheated sea vents on the deep ocean floors (where no solar light reaches and under tremendous pressures), and this now raises the possibility that life has developed elsewhere in the solar system, as well as in other Solar Systems in the Galaxy.
The fact that ice water is on the surface of Mars and is now being studied, just adds to the possibilities of life there, at least in the past .... I say that because conditions on Mars, may actually be, or have been, much better in some respects, than deep inside the planet Earth.
A sentence in Latin from Jules Verne's novel Journey to the Centre of the Earth: "Descende, Audax viator, et terrestre centrum attinges", which translates as "Descend, Bold Traveller, and attain the centre of the Earth" is the neat basis of the new life forms name, and with Vernes interest in the Deep Oceans and Space travel as well, makes a nice link for the possibilities this bug represents.
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