Transportation of Life between Worlds:

Discussion in 'Astronomy, Exobiology, & Cosmology' started by paddoboy, Nov 20, 2017.

  1. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    https://phys.org/news/2017-11-space-life-worlds.html

    Space dust may transport life between worlds

    Life on our planet might have originated from biological particles brought to Earth in streams of space dust, a study suggests.

    Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-11-space-life-worlds.html#jCp

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    the paper:
    https://arxiv.org/pdf/1711.01895.pdf

    Space dust collisions as a planetary escape mechanism:

    It is observed that hypervelocity space dust, which is continuously bombarding the Earth, creates immense momentum flows in the atmosphere. Some of this fast space dust inevitably will interact with the atmospheric system, transferring energy and moving particles around, with various possible consequences. This paper examines, with supporting estimates, the possibility that through collisions, the Earth-grazing component of space dust can facilitate planetary escape of atmospheric particles, whether they be the atoms and molecules forming the atmosphere or bigger sized particles. As one interesting outcome, floating in the Earth’s atmosphere are a variety of particles containing the telltale signs of Earth’s organic story, including microbial life and life essential molecules. This paper will assess the ability for this space dust collision mechanism to propel some of these biological constituents into space.
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    Panspermia is a favourite scenario of mine, and while this article and paper still do not really offer concrete evidence that it did take place, it certainly does leave that possibility still open for discussion. And of course whether Life started on Earth or was transported here, or vice versa, it still does not detail how life first arose in the universe or any evidence as to how obviously Abiogenesis first took place.
     
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  3. orcot Valued Senior Member

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    it could be possible. Certainly if we ever find life outside of earth it should be checked if it's true alien life or yust a stow away from earth. Whilst life could have come here from outer space. At this point in time earth is probably the biggest contributor to sending life into space... (and who knows what they will find in those geysers spewing water and who knows what, into space near Enceladus or other
     
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  5. TabbyStar Registered Member

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    I have long been fond of the Panspermia discussions. They interest me greatly during my quest for understanding of life spawning or initiating on Earth. Do you folks agree that if we find even the slightest trace of microbes on asteroids (should we strike out for planets and moons) that the Panspermia hypothesis will gain greater support? Maybe an asteroid in the kuiper belt or oort cloud, will harbor life that possibly came from outside our solar system.
     
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  7. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, it certainly would give some ooomph to the thought that life may have been transported to Earth many eons ago. But also the possibility that Abiogenesis could have seemingly taken place in more then one location and on more then one planet would need to be considered.
     
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  8. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    comets
    the sheer volume of water ...
    lego life !

    Logic is Logic
     
  9. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    Me too.

    Sure. If microbial life is found on Mars, I''d be very interested in what its molecular biology looks like. If it uses DNA and RNA, if its various metabolic pathways are reasonably familiar at least in their essentials, and especially if it has the same kind of genetic code that Earth life does, I'd interpret that as sign of common ancestry.

    Though as Orcot points out, we would still have to be able to distinguish between evidence of ancient panspermia and evidence of microbial contamination delivered much more recently by a previous rover or something.

    I figure that if microbes on Mars are indistinguishable from Earth microbes, they probably are Earth microbes. If Earth or Mars seeded the other with microbes 3 1/2 billion years ago or something, I'd expect them to to have diverged pretty dramatically in the time since. But they would still be variations on the original theme.

    I can easily imagine bacterial spores traveling between the Earth and the Moon or Mars, basically any other solar system body.

    But fragments of rock containing bacterial spores would seem to only drift slowly between stars. So it would presumably take a long period of time (millions of years?) to make such a journey. And I'm not entirely convinced that the DNA in a bacterial spore could remain viable in the outer space environment for that amount of time, even if it's protected from radiation inside a rock.

    Of course the Science Fiction nut in me can imagine space-alien astronauts from an interstellar spaceship visiting the very early Earth not long after it first formed, and clomping around the sterile Earth with dirty boots.
     
    Last edited: Jul 10, 2019
  10. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    Certainly a possibility that I have often agreed to in the UFO threads, but as I'm sure you'll agree, we do not have any evidence of such visitations just yet, or that Abiogenesis did take place anywhere else, other then here on Earth.
     
    Last edited: Jul 10, 2019
  11. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    double whammy
     

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