General Chat

Did anyone see the programe last night?

Nestled safely inside the belly of a comet orbiting some unknown star, a microscopic alien sits dormant. Somewhere in this vast universe -- perhaps a place like Earth -- a greater destiny awaits the microbe. A place to flourish, become a nematode or a rose or a teenager. Life, after all, is tenacious and thrives on change. Over time, gravity performs a few plausible, but not routine tricks, and the comet is ejected from its stellar orbit like a rock from a slingshot. For more than a 100 million years it slips silently across the inky vastness of interstellar space. Then gravity goes to work again. Another star tugs at the comet, pulls it in. A few giant gaseous planets whiz by, their bulks tugging at the comet, altering its course slightly. Ahead now, growing larger, looms a gorgeous blue and brown marble. Water and land. Maybe some air. Then with the force only the cosmos can summon, the comet slams into the third rock from a mid-sized, moderately powerful star. The alien microbe survives, emerges from its protective shell and spreads like the dickens. Thus began life on Earth, 3.8 billion years ago. Or so goes one aspect of a theory called panspermia, which holds that the stuff of life is everywhere and that we humans owe our genesis and evolution to a continual rain of foreign microbes. It means, simply, that we might all be aliens. It's an idea that has been around longer than Christianity, but which still struggles to gain strong support among most scientists. But two recent discoveries are breathing new life into the theory.