Possible Transfer of Life by Earth-Grazing Objects to Exoplanetary\n Systems

2020/01/07 by Amir Siraj, Abraham Loeb, Siraj, Amir +1
Physics and Astronomy · #Astro and Planetary Science #Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) #Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP) #FOS: Physical sciences

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2001.02235

openalex publication_date 2020/01/07 · openalex created_date 2022/07/26 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

Recently, a 30-cm object was discovered to graze the Earth's atmosphere and\nshift into a Jupiter-crossing orbit. We use the related survey parameters to\ncalibrate the total number of such objects. The number of objects that could\nhave exported terrestrial microbes out of the Solar System is in the range 2\n\× 10⁹--3 \× 10¹¹. We find that 10⁷--10⁹ such\nobjects could have been captured by binary star systems over the lifetime of\nthe Solar System. Adopting the fiducial assumption that one polyextremophile\ncolony is picked up by each object, the total number of objects carrying living\ncolonies on them upon capture could be 10--10³.\n

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