Seeds of life?
The theory of comets bringing life to Earth is called panspermia, which means 'seeds everywhere'. The idea is that life began outside the Earth. Interstellar rocks, asteroids and comets brought the raw ingredients to our planet, and possibly to others.
If the space detectives find that comets contain elements essential to life, such as carbon, nitrogen and oxygen, they'll have good circumstantial evidence that the building blocks of life came from space, not Earth - a real shock verdict!
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Could the seeds of life be lurking on a comet?
Image: NASA/JPL |
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