Scientists Find Microbes Can Survive Traveling from Planet to Planet While Clinging to Asteroids
Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech In an effort to explain how life started on Earth billions of years ago, some scientists have suggested that microbes — or perhaps the organic building blocks of life — may have hitched a ride while clinging to space dust, asteroids, comets, or planetoids. The hypothesis, dubbed panspermia, raises the possibility that the earliest forms of life may have originated on other planets, including perhaps Mars, which scientists believe may have once been covered in oceans, lakes, and rivers. A sub-theory, dubbed lithopanspermia, holds that asteroid strikes on other planets may have dislodged surface material back into orbit, allowing microorganisms embedded within the debris to eventually make it to Earth. It’s an intriguing idea, but proving it is exceedingly difficult. In an effort to push things along — and satisfy their curiosity — Johns Hopkins University asteroid impact expert KT Ramesh and his colleagues gathered experimental data exploring whether bacteria could survive a journey between planets via an …
