"High on the Tenzing Montes, the explorers found that apart from nitrogen ice, there was also water ice as solid as rock. It has long been argued that to form a mountain range of Tenzing Montes's size, nitrogen ice alone wouldn't be enough, as nitrogen ice wasn't hard enough. Sure enough, water ice was discovered the moment explorers reached a high position," said Zhang Xingxing.

"That discovery merely proved that the hypothesis made at that time was right. It's not really a major discovery," said Dodo, questioning the finding's importance.

"The major discovery came from the massive chunk of water ice. The temperature at the Tenzing Montes was as low as negative 238 degrees. From within the ice, the explorers found something that did not exist in the nitrogen ice," said Zhang Xingxing.

"What did they find?" I asked, sensing that we had reached a critical point in the story.

"Germs—countless...