Contamination, that’s a nice “out” just in case some type of life is found there. Those vehicles were sterilized to the nth degree before launch and I seriously doubt that there were any nooks and crannies available that would shield a microbe through that kind of hard vacuum journey. What sort of argument would one use if life was found that didn’t remotely resemble any current genetic lines known on earth?
And what do you mean by purpose? Definitively stating that it would have no purpose seems to me to be treading on the ground of assuming knowledge of the mind of God. What purpose does the colony of organisms around a deep sea vent serve? For all intents and purposes that was an impossible for life area up until it was found there 30 or 40 years ago.
How did they sterilize them? By radiation of all carbon based cells?
What purpose does the colony of organisms around a deep sea vent serve?
for that matter, what purpose does any life form serve, except to attend to its own perpetuation...?
I agree, bringing ‘purpose’ into this discussion was quite odd...
Yehova had ‘purpose’ in creating life only here on Earth.
Life of Earth origin likely still exists on comets that all were ejected from Earth during volcanic episodes of the Genesis judgement (”fountains of the great deep”).