The surface of the moon is 100 m thick blanket of impact debris that has been pulverized over billions of years. Nothing in kind of structure could survive that treatment, regardless of whether it is silicon or carbon based. No plausible metabolic cycle exists for breakdown of lunar rocks, which would not be detectable through outgassing or spectrographically detectable alteration on the regolith. We have actual surface samples and drilled cores that have been thoroughly analyzed. There is no life on the Moon.
> The surface of the moon is 100 m thick blanket of impact debris that has been pulverized over billions of years. Nothing in kind of structure could survive that treatment, regardless of whether it is silicon or carbon based.
Impacts would destroy any conceivable microbes in the immediate vicinity of the impact. But unless an impact was strong enough to sterilize the entire moon all at once, microbes outside the kill radius could subsequently reclaim the impact site. Like plants reclaiming land after a lava flow destroys everything previously living in that spot.
I agree with your other arguments, and believe the moon is sterile.
> microbes outside the kill radius could subsequently reclaim the impact site
And visibly alter it. Even microbes consume matter from the environment, and excrete metabolic byproducts. It would be detectable at a chemical level; with enough time, even visually.
What this guy said. Point is the Apollo samples could even be classified into what impact site they came from, and the samples remained unchanged since the moment they were created. Life intrinsically must change its environment, and no such changes have ever been detected.
Mars is a different story.