3 ms·
The panspermania hypothesis has one very large hurdle to get over: the half-life of DNA is ~500 years [0]. If life came from outside our planet via an asteroid
by Balgair 7y ago
The panspermania hypothesis has one very large hurdle to get over: the half-life of DNA is ~500 years [0].
If life came from outside our planet via an asteroid or something, then it had to be a LOT of DNA that came over. More exotic theories can be concieved, but the jist is that it is really really hard for DNA to travel the stars and between planets intact.
The simplier explination is that it started here.
[0] https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.2012.1745 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.201...
- asfarley 7y agoI get the impression that this article is mostly about dating bones. When people talk about DNA-based-panspermia, I've always assumed that they meant either a living or dormant organism (with the potential for DNA replication/error-correction), rather than a completely inert blob of DNA.
- Balgair 7y agoI always figured that the extremes of interstellar space automatically precluded anything that was even remotely alive. The temperature swings, vacuum, radiation, and ejection and re-entry violence always seemed to me to be so crazy that I assumed that nothing could survive it; just bits of genetric material, a dead ameoboid carcass, etc. I'll have to ponder on the idea that anything could get past all those 'gates'. If it did, woah, what a hardy little thing!