Panspermia: the idea that life was despatched to Earth by aliens

We usually ponder whether there are aliens on different planets however what if we ourselves are aliens on the planet we name residence?

Panspermia, the “controversial” idea that life “began elsewhere in space” and was “delivered to Earth on comets and asteroids”, is gaining new traction, mentioned BBC Science Focus.

Building blocks of life

New evaluation of asteroid rocks introduced again to Earth by Japanese and Nasa-led space missions suggests a presence of some of the building blocks of life – which could mean that those “same building blocks”, and “perhaps even primitive microbial life”, could have been delivered to Earth on other asteroids or comets billions of years ago, said BBC Science Focus.

Scientists examining the rock samples have found carbon, ammonia, salts, 14 of the 20 amino acids needed to make proteins, and the “basic constituents of DNA and RNA”.

Of course, “just having the right conditions and ingredients” for life “doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily create life”, but the findings will still gladden the hearts of believers in panspermia.

The origin of those first life-delivering rocks could have been a nearby planet, like Mars, or somewhere light years away. And, if that was the case, the potential consequences are huge – because, if it happened here, it has probably happened on other planets, too.

‘Wild’ theories

The theory of panspermia dates back many years and was “popularised in the 1970s” by the British astronomers Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, said BBC Science Focus.

Their suggestion that asteroids and comets could have been incubators for life wasn’t taken seriously at first, and the pair were regarded as “crazy”, said Paul Davies, a theoretical physicist and astrobiologist at Arizona State University.

But the theory gradually “became more alluring”, and “reached a fascinating peak” in 1996 when scientists believed they had discovered traces of microfossils of bacteria inside a meteorite from Mars that had landed in Antarctica. The discovery was later refuted.

Recently, in a “wild” new spin on the theory, known as directed panspermia, it’s been suggested that “aliens sent microbes or simple life forms” to Earth themselves, to “propel evolution”, said the Daily Mail.

Even if the panspermia (or directed panspermia) idea seems to be true, it doesn’t reply the large query, mentioned New Scientist, as a result of it “simply relocates the problem of how life got going – we haven’t found evidence of life elsewhere”. Besides, we all know that house is “hostile to life”, as proven in experiments the place micro organism positioned exterior the International Space Station confronted a “heavy toll”, so there are query marks over how life’s constructing blocks might survive the putative journey via house to Earth.