[meteorite-list] Panspermia, Reverse Panspermia & Life In Space

From: Meteorites USA <eric_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 22:17:49 -0700
Message-ID: <4A28AA7D.60905_at_meteoritesusa.com>

Hi list,

I know I've posted a lot today, but bear with me. I've been doing some
research since I found the article on the meteorite that Mars rover
Opportunity found on Mars earlier and it got me to thinking about how it
got there and where it was from. This led to more research and more
questions...

We know meteorites come from other celestial bodies, whether they be
from asteroids, comets, or planets. All types of meteorites have been
found on Earth but... What about the reverse?

We know it happens because we have lunar and martian meteorites here on
Earth. Over the last few months I've been reading about panspermia and
artificial planet seeding too which are very interesting topics.

You can imagine the force a huge asteroid would exert on the crust of
our planet during an impact event and would eject quite a bit of
material into space.

This all brings up some very interesting questions... If Panspermia is a
theory, then wouldn't reverse panspermia (life originating from Earth)
suggest it's very plausible and not just possible to seed life on other
planets from another by impact, travel and time?

Having said that let me illustrate a scenario. A huge asteroid impacted
Earth millions of years ago throwing millions of tons of debris into our
atmosphere. Some of this debris will escape Earth's gravity and make it
into space. How much is arguable. Wouldn't it be possible for some
microbe or bacteria to be preserved deep inside a clump of Earth, and
flash frozen in the iciness of space?

How many billions of bacteria, and microbes, or even insects have been
launched into space over the hundreds or even thousands of large impacts
the Earth has been subject to since the beginning of time? Look at the
jungles of South America and Africa and other tropical regions. The
density of life in any given square foot is higher than on any other
place on the planet. If a large Asteroid impacted this region you can
imagine the sheer numbers of "life forms" that escaped Earth.

Survivability is the issue. If the microbe or "life form" is deep enough
within the stone, rock, or clump of earth, wouldn't it be preserved.
wouldn't this Earth rock act as a capsule to transport life outside our
own solar system? Current science tells us that the temperature of the
interior of a meteoroid entering our atmosphere is relatively low. In
fact it is usually ambient to space. In other words cold! Frozen even.
This is sufficient to allow a microbial life form to survive isn't it?
Look up Water Bear on Google...

http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2905&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/081016-am-tardigrade-toughness.html

Wouldn't this mean that there could be space rocks out there with "life"
within them right now? Life that came from Earth? And if there's life
out there that comes from Earth, it wouldn't take a rocket scientist to
guess that there might be other material out there that might just have
come from another habitable solar system. I know these are big jumps and
guesses, but isn't it possible considering the sheer length of time, the
age of our planet, and the number of impact events over this time period
on other celestial bodies and planets?

I mean we are talking about billions of years here...

Your thoughts?

-- 
Regards,
Eric Wichman
Meteorites USA
http://www.meteoritesusa.com
904-236-5394

Received on Fri 05 Jun 2009 01:17:49 AM PDT