We’re Not From Around Here… Apparently!
August 15, 2007 (2 Responses)
BRITISH SCIENTISTS are reporting that the odds of life starting on Earth rather than inside a comet are one trillion trillion (10 to the power of 24) to one against. In other words folks, we’re not from around here!
Recent probes inside comets show it is overwhelmingly likely that life began in space, according to a new paper by Cardiff University scientists. This concept is referred to as “Panspermia”.
The 2005 Deep Impact mission to Comet Tempel 1 discovered a mixture of organic and clay particles inside the comet. One theory for the origins of life proposes that clay particles acted as a catalyst, converting simple organic molecules into more complex structures. The 2004 Stardust Mission to Comet Wild 2 found a range of complex hydrocarbon molecules - potential building blocks for life.
The suggestion is that radioactive elements can keep water in liquid form in comet interiors for millions of years, making them potentially ideal “incubators” for early life. They also point out that the billions of comets in our solar system and across the galaxy contain far more clay than the early Earth did.
So - in other words, it’s scientifically possible that the building blocks for life on this planet were ‘cooked’ inside a comet and eventually dispersed in this solar system, around this planet, and those building blocks eventually led to us - the Human race.
Personally I’m ok with this theory. It’s way better than any religious whackjob version or Scientology bullshit. It not only sounds plausible, but it suggests the same concept - Panspermia - would make the odds of finding life on other planets higher still. If it happened here, it could have happened elsewhere too.
This slice of science has been brought to you today by the letter P, as in Panspermia 
I can understand life being “sparked” here from stray organic molecules on a comet — but how did those molecules get on the comet in the first place? And if the molecules are on a comet — what prevents them from having independently occurred here on Earth anyway? So many questions…
I guess it all comes back down to the ‘big bang’ theory in the end. The ‘bang’ creates the universe and the first vestiges of life-building blocks… the outward bound comets spread this to the far reaches and eventually life begins, evolves and tries to find it’s way back to the centre, to the origin of it all.
Personally I like the potential symmetry of it all