> If anyone could answer, I've always wondered how a hypothetical bacteria on an asteroid could survive impact with earth or any celestial body. Thinking about

> If anyone could answer, I've always wondered how a hypothetical bacteria on an asteroid could survive impact with earth or any celestial body. Thinking about it, my initial thought "part of the asteroid didn't get that hot" can't be right... More likely [0], some components of the organism can remain intact after impact. Seeing papers like this one [1], where different components of a system can/do combine, or seeing one of the current theories for how mitochondria came to exist [2], makes me think extremely low probability combinations happen to workout sometimes. That, plus trillions of chances to happen. [0] PhD, but not in astrobiology... [1] http://www.cell.com/cell-host-microbe/pdfExtended/S1931-3128(16)30310-9 http://www.cell.com/cell-host-microbe/pdfExtended/S1931-3128... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_hypothesis