USA: According to a recent study, space dust and other planet's debris may contain signs of extraterrestrial life. According to the research, about 100,000 space dust specks that could harbour signs of extraterrestrial life could be travelling to Earth annually. The search for life outside of our solar system may also provide insight into how life on Earth first came to be.
Science has been both intrigued and excited by the potential for life beyond our home planet. To look for extraterrestrial life, a number of space agencies have sent missions to Mars and even asteroids. It seems we might not need to look very far to find signs of extraterrestrial life in light of the findings from the recent study.
Tomonori Totani, an astronomy professor at the University of Tokyo and the study's lead author, suggests that we investigate "well-preserved grains ejected from other worlds for potential signs of life."
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While astronomical observations may be able to find signs of life, Totani contends that relying solely on distant observations of planets will not allow for the "unambiguous detection of life."
Consider how ground material is ejected from a celestial object when it collides with, say, an asteroid to better comprehend the claims made by the research. There are slim chances that this ejected material will contain any dead or even fossilised microorganisms if there is any life present on the celestial object. But how do we gather this asteroidal dust?
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The size of the ejected material will vary, and the various particle sizes will behave differently in space. The larger fragments of the ejected material, for instance, might fall back to the celestial object or might end up orbiting another planet or a nearby star. The smallest pieces, meanwhile, might be too tiny to have any detectable life.
However, one micrometre, or one thousandth of a millimetre, space dust particles might be the best choice to bring evidence of extraterrestrial life to Earth. Single-celled organisms can live on space dust particles, and under the right conditions, they may be able to leave their solar system and even travel to planet Earth.
There is a very small chance that any ejecta carrying life signs from another world could even get to us due to the great distances and times involved "Totani stated. Totani continued, "Several phenomena, such as heat or radiation, can affect small space particles." According to the study, 100,000 space particles may come to Earth annually, but given the uncertainties, this estimate may be "too high or too low."
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These grains may already exist on Earth, in large quantities, preserved in regions like the Antarctic ice or beneath the seafloor "based on the study. Space dust in these locations could be recovered reasonably easily, but it is still difficult to distinguish extrasolar material from material that originated in our solar system.