Comment by symbolicAGI

Comment by symbolicAGI 14 hours ago

3 replies

One wonders where else in the solar system moss from Earth may have taken hold. Spores and such could be making the journey randomly from gravity well to gravity well.

andrewflnr 7 hours ago

Moss requires quite a bit of liquid water to actually reproduce, since (IIRC) their sperm need to swim around to mate. So we're left with, like, maybe Europa, if there's enough light and enough water gets into the surface via cracks? I doubt there's enough light under the surface, even if you found a moss species that can survive being totally submerged in whatever saltwater hellscape is under there. Basically there are still going to be huge problems for moss anywhere besides Earth. They already mostly stick to wet environments here.

the-mitr 11 hours ago

Fred Hoyle with Chandra Wickramasinghe have posited mechanisms for such events in their model of Panspermia