woo Panspermia

pretty neat stuff! May offend some chrientists though.

Always amazes me that there is sooo much evidence for panspermia, yet it's still a "crackpot" theory??

Kind of humourous also that the "established" position that panspermia theorists fight against is that evolution likely only happened once (or so close to a single time as to be statistically negligible), and only happened here.

Which not only sounds crazier, it's kinda religious-ish (religified?) as well.

If life came from outerspace, it would still need to begin somewhere. So the problem of how life began can't be explained by suggesting it came from space. That's why it's not important to those trying to prove life came from non-living matter.

It's not so much that it's a crackpot theory, but unhelpful; it only pushes the mystery back a step, instead of "how did life come to be? we aren't sure!", it's made more complex to "how did life come to be? It came from somewhere in space! But where did THAT come from? We aren't sure!"

That is, it seems entirely possible that it is fact, but regarding the ultimate origin of life it is a unhelpful sidetrack.

I just think panspermia is a pretty neat concept, without trying to apply it to any religious/philisophical questions. If life in fact can jump throughout the cosmos, then it increases the chances that the universe is teeming with life, and I'd rather live in a lush aquarium than in am undecorated fishbowl.

It is thought that life arose on Earth far too fast to have begun from scratch. That is the usefulness of the Panspermia concept. It may have been in gestation somewhere else. If we could prove, say, that life existed on Mars or Venus before it existed on Earth, it would explain a few things.

I don't have much issue with panspermia.

Think: the Solar System, sweeping its course around the galaxy, through the gritty-hot shockwaves of galactic arms, glowing nebulae of organic molecules, and large tracts of mostly peaceful sailing.

In other words: 4.5 billion years of goo-collection.

Lines up with other odd things; you know all those thin, streaky meteorites that don't amount to much? Some astronomer took a hard look at those and saw they were coming from a radiant in the direction of Beta Pictoris - an incredibly dusty star system about 50 light years away.

Panspermia entirely aligns with my experience in the kitchen: if you don't keep on top of bacteria, they will spread everywhere without the least provocation. Mice are never far behind.


And most of all... I like the word.

Panspermia.

*giggle!*

For the record, our solar system doesn't pass through other galactic arms..

If that happened, earth would almost certainly be totally obliterated.... Have galaxies collide tends to make a pretty massive boom.

For the record, Desmond said through the "...shockwaves of galactic arms..." (italics mine).

And, and, and... meteoroids are remnants of "local" bodies (comets - astronomers think that all showers probably have a cometary origin) - they just appear to originate from certain constellations (or stars I suppose), hence the names like Leonids, Perseids, etc.

I disagree it would explain anything important. According to my faith, God created life wherever it may be. I certainly expect to find life throughout the cosmos. Because a great God wouldn't stop after the first week.

I hope there is some chance for survival because Andromeda is coming our way!
In less than two billion years this solar system is kaput!

What exactly are shockwaves of galactic arms?

On topic though, there are scientists who think that earth is basically being constantly bombarded by life attached to meteorites and such... and that it may actually be a source for new diseases on earth.

I haven't the slightest, I was simply correcting your mis-quoted correction

Ah, ok.. I had assumed that shockwaves of galactic arms meant shockwaves resulting from a galactic collision.

Crash your own galaxy right here and see gravitational "shockwaves resulting from a galactic collision"