It's beginning to look like life here began out there. The number of potentially habitable worlds has exploded. Organic molecules are being found in comets and cosmic clouds. So is there an interstellar conveyor belt seeding life throughout the galaxy?
Monash University’s Professor John Lattanzio has told the annual meeting of the Astronomical Society of Australia hosted at Swinburne University this week that he thinks this may be so.
The idea is called panspermia.
There is as yet no ‘smoking gun’ that life on Earth is an offshoot of interstellar spores.
But there are enough clues floating about to make the concept enticing.
“A series of astronomical observations obtained over the period 1986 to 2018 supports the idea that life is a cosmic rather than a purely terrestrial or planetary phenomenon,” Professor Lattanzio says.
To read more, click here.