Transfer of Life by Earth-Grazing Objects to Exoplanetary Systems

ABSTRACT

Recently, a 30 cm object was discovered to graze the Earth's atmosphere and shift into a Jupiter-crossing orbit. We use the related survey parameters to calibrate the total number of such objects. The number of objects that could have exported terrestrial microbes out of the Solar System is in the range 2×10^₉−3×10^₁₁. We find that10^₇−10⁹ such objects could have been captured by binary star systems over the lifetime of the Solar System. The total number of objects carrying living microbes on them upon capture is10−10³.