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

Siraj, Amir; Loeb, Abraham

doi:10.3390/life10040044

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…Interestingly, stellar binary systems are capable of capturing background objects via three-body processes (Heggie, 1975;Valtonen, 1983), leading to capture rates that are enhanced relative to lone stars (Ginsburg et al, 2018;Siraj and Loeb, 2020g). Current binary companions to the Sun were previously considered (Matese et al, 2005;Melott and Bambach, 2010), and subsequently ruled out (Luhman, 2014).…”

Section: Sun Planet Ninementioning

confidence: 99%

“…We note that this assumption is not critical; increasing the minimum altitude by a few scale heights above the observed altitude of the Shober et al (2020) bolide would result in minimal heating (<100 • C) while only reducing the atmospheric cross section by a small factor, potentially allowing for microbes on the surface in the case of non-porous objects. In Siraj and Loeb (2020g), we study the likelihood of life-bearing Solar System bodies being captured by exoplanetary systems. Using a Monte Carlo simulation, we calculated the likelihood of potentially life-bearing Solar System bodies to get captured by exoplanetary systems.…”

Section: Sun Planet Ninementioning

confidence: 99%

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The New Astronomical Frontier of Interstellar Objects

Siraj¹,

Loeb²

2021

Preprint

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The upcoming commencement of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space of Time (LSST) will greatly enhance the discovery rate of interstellar objects (ISOs). 'Oumuamua and Borisov were the first two ISOs confirmed in the Solar system, although the first interstellar meteor may have been discovered earlier. We discuss the properties of 'Oumuamua and Borisov and explore the expected abundance of ISOs as a function of size in the solar neighborhood. We compare the expected abundance of ISOs to that of objects in the Oort cloud, and draw conclusions about the mass budget per star that is required to produce ISOs. We also investigate the possibility of ISOs being captured into bound orbits within the solar system, both from its birth star cluster and in the field. We examine the potential for ISOs to transport prebiotic or biotic material between planetary systems. We consider signatures of ISOs colliding with the Earth, the Moon, and neutron stars, as well as the possibility of differentiating ISOs from solar system objects in stellar occultation surveys. Finally, we discuss advantages that the imminent advent of LSST will afford the field of ISO studies, including large-number statistics that will reveal the origins of ISOs and discoveries of rare ISOs providing insights into exotic phenomena. One of the two branches of the newly established Galileo Project 1 seeks to learn more about the nature of ISOs like 'Oumuamua by performing new searches and designing follow-up observations.

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Section: Sun Planet Ninementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Sun Planet Ninementioning

confidence: 99%

The New Astronomical Frontier of Interstellar Objects

Siraj¹,

Loeb²

2021

Preprint

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“…The actual feasibility of lithopanspermia on interstellar distances has been addressed in the past, and shown to be achievable, at least in principle (Zubrin 2001;Wallis & Wickramasinghe 2004;Napier 2004;Ginsburg et al 2018;Siraj & Loeb 2020), especially in crowded environments, such as in star-forming clusters (Adams & Spergel 2005;Valtonen et al 2009;Belbruno et al 2012) or in the Galactic bulge (Chen et al 2018;; furthermore, its probability can be significantly enhanced by interactions with binary systems (Lingam & Loeb 2018). Although the issue is still debated and, admittedly, rather speculative, there are strong theoretical motivations to explore how a viable lithopanspermia mechanism could impact the distribution of life in the Galaxy, particularly if compared to the case where life originates independently in separate locations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Feasibility of Detecting Interstellar Panspermia in Astrophysical Environments

Grimaldi,

Lingam,

Balbi

2021

Preprint

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The proposition that life can spread from one planetary system to another (interstellar panspermia) has a long history, but this hypothesis is difficult to test through observations. We develop a mathematical model that takes parameters such as the microbial survival lifetime, the stellar velocity dispersion, and the dispersion of ejecta into account in order to assess the prospects for detecting interstellar panspermia. We show that the correlations between pairs of life-bearing planetary systems (embodied in the pair-distribution function from statistics) may serve as an effective diagnostic of interstellar panspermia, provided that the velocity dispersion of ejecta is greater than the stellar dispersion. We provide heuristic estimates of the model parameters for various astrophysical environments, and conclude that open clusters and globular clusters appear to represent the best targets for assessing the viability of interstellar panspermia.

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A birth-death-migration model for life in astrophysical environments

Lingam

Grimaldi

Balbi

2021

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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To assess the number of life-bearing worlds in astrophysical environments, it is necessary to take the intertwined processes of abiogenesis (birth), extinction (death), and transfer of life (migration) into account. We construct a mathematical model that incorporates this trio of mechanisms and accordingly derive the probability distribution function and other statistical properties (e.g. mean) for the number of worlds with biospheres. We show that a given astrophysical setting may become eventually saturated with life if the rate of successful transfers of organisms is higher than the extinction rate of biospheres. Based on the available data, we suggest that this criterion might be fulfilled for star-forming clusters (and perhaps the Galactic bulge under optimal circumstances), thereby indicating that such regions could constitute promising abodes for hosting and detecting life.

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

Cited by 5 publications

References 24 publications

The New Astronomical Frontier of Interstellar Objects

The New Astronomical Frontier of Interstellar Objects

Feasibility of Detecting Interstellar Panspermia in Astrophysical Environments

A birth-death-migration model for life in astrophysical environments

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