Related papers: Interplanetary transmissions of life in an evoluti…

Motivated by the recent discovery of interstellar objects passing through the solar system, and by recent developments in dynamical simulations, this paper reconsiders the likelihood for life bearing rocks to be transferred from one…

Natural panspermia is a transport-and-establishment hypothesis, not a theory of abiogenesis. The Earth-specific question is whether any nonterrestrial donor remains competitive with terrestrial origin once launch, planetary-system escape,…

The exchange of meteorites among the terrestrial planets of our Solar System is a well established phenomenon that has triggered discussion of lithopanspermia within the Solar System. Similarly, could solid material be transferred across…

We examine a low energy mechanism for the transfer of meteoroids between two planetary systems embedded in a star cluster using quasi-parabolic orbits of minimal energy. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we find that the exchange of meteoroids…

This paper considers the lithopanspermia hypothesis in star forming groups and clusters, where the chances of biological material spreading from one solar system to another is greatly enhanced (relative to the field) due to the close…

Material from the surface of a planet can be ejected into space by a large impact, and could carry primitive life forms with it. We performed n-body simulations of such ejecta to determine where in the Solar System rock from Earth and Mars…

As discoveries of multiple planets in the habitable zone of their parent star mount, developing analytical techniques to quantify extrasolar intra-system panspermia will become increasingly important. Here, we provide user-friendly…

The proposition that life can spread from one planetary system to another (interstellar panspermia) has a long history, but this hypothesis is difficult to test through observations. We develop a mathematical model that takes parameters…

In this work of speculative science, scientists from a distant star system explain the emergence and consequences of triparentalism, when three individuals are required for sexual reproduction, which is the standard form of mating on their…

The concept of a system-wide measure of the sustainment of life (habitability) for space-faring interplanetary species is introduced and explored. Although largely agnostic to the details of how interplanetary life might operate (e.g., via…

A fundamental astrobiological question is whether life can be transported between extrasolar systems. We propose a new strategy to answer this question based on the principle that life which arose via spreading will exhibit more clustering…

The oft-repeated claim that life is written into the laws of nature are examined and criticized. Arguments are given in favour of life spreading between near-neighbour planets in rocky impact ejecta (transpermia), but against panspermia,…

Astronomically, there are viable mechanisms for distributing organic material throughout the Milky Way. Biologically, the destructive effects of ultraviolet light and cosmic rays means that the majority of organisms arrive broken and dead…

We investigate whether it is possible that viable microbes could have been transported to Earth from the planets in extra-solar systems by means of natural vehicles such as ejecta expelled by comet or asteroid impacts on such planets. The…

Genomic complexity can be used as a clock with which the moment in which life originated can be measured. Some authors who have studied this problem have come to the conclusion that it is not possible that terrestrial life originated here…

The ease of interstellar rocket travel is an issue with implications for the long term fate of our own and other civilizations and for the much-debated number of technological civilizations in the Galaxy. We show that the physical barrier…

The study of the origin of life on Earth has been broadened due to panspermia models that suggest that early life may have been transferred between planets. Mars likely once had conditions that could support life, and it is interesting…

We present a simple model for estimating the probability of interplanetary panspermia in the recently discovered system of seven planets orbiting the ultracool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1, and find that panspermia is potentially orders of…

It is often presumed, that life evolves relatively fast on planets with clement conditions, at least in its basic forms, and that extended periods of habitability are subsequently needed for the evolution of higher life forms. Many planets…

The transformation of organic molecules into the simplest self-replicating living system,a microorganism, is accomplished from a unique event or rare events that occurred early in the Universe. The subsequent dispersal on cosmic scales and…