Research Suggests How Alien Life Could Spread Across the Galaxy

astroengine writes: As astronomical techniques become more advanced, a team of astrophysicists think they will be able to not only detect the signatures of alien life in exoplanetary atmospheres, but also track its relentless spread throughout the galaxy. The research, headed by Henry Lin of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), assumes that this feat may be possible in a generation or so and that the hypothesis of panspermia may act as the delivery system for alien biology to hop from one star system to another.

Comments

Re:It can't.

[ShadowRangerRIT]

Hate to break it you, but the formation of the Moon probably didn't seed the solar system (or anywhere else) with life from Earth. The earliest single cell life forms likely date to around 3.6 billion years ago; the Theia impact hypothesis puts the collision around 4.4 to 4.5 billion years ago (and only 30-50 million years after the Solar System even began forming). Even if both estimates are off by a couple hundred million years, there is still no overlap. Earth was an uninhabitable ball of molten rock at the time, not remotely suitable for the initial development of life remotely like ours.