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> A sample collected from the 4.5-billion-year-old asteroid Bennu contains abundant water and carbon, NASA revealed on Wednesday, offering more evidence for the

> A sample collected from the 4.5-billion-year-old asteroid Bennu contains abundant water and carbon, NASA revealed on Wednesday, offering more evidence for the theory that life on Earth was seeded from outer space. > Scientists believe the reason Earth has oceans, lakes and rivers is because it was hit with water-carrying asteroids 4 to 4.5 billion years ago, making it a habitable planet. This might be common knowledge for lots of folks but this is the first time I read this and is just mind boggling to me. There's A LOT of water on our planet, that's a lot of / very big asteroids.

uolmir 3y ago
It's always great for more people to know this. As another comment said, this is in no way "new" information. In fact, it may be interesting for you and others to read about the long study of organic compounds in meteorites. You could start with Murchison[1], which contains not just simple molecules, but over 70 amino acids. It even smells. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murchison_meteorite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murchison_meteorite
pstuart 3y ago
It's not an unreasonable proposition but life had to have an origin somewhere, so if it came from space where did that source come from? Deep sea thermal vents seem like a reasonable origin as well.
- cryptoz 3y ago
  I like playing with the odds and changing the unknowns to extremes in my head - what if abiogenesis is relatively common given the right conditions and enough time, and also that panspermia is common. This would mean that life could both easily arise alone on a planet and also the universe would be strewn with asteroids scattered everywhere carrying single-celled organisms/simple life. Ignoring the question of the likelihood of intelligent life out there, I do wonder if maybe the universe is full of lush planets with lots of related lifeforms across trillions of star systems. Could life even cross into new galaxies this way? I dunno! But it's fun to think about.
  - lawlessone 3y ago
    I wonder if there's bits of dinosaurs in space from the impact that killed them. We have Mars meteors that hit Earth. Maybe Mars has Earth Meteors?
  - somenameforme 3y ago
    The most interesting thing about it though is the Fermi Paradox. Our species entire existence isn't even a blink on a galactic timescale. And in another blink we will likely have spread all around this galaxy, and perhaps even further. If we imagine things that are already reasonably viable like exploratory swarms - glorified robotic 3d printers that can harvest their own material for further self replication and spread, we'll be absolutely everywhere in no time. The implications of this being that advanced life will likely tend to expand exceptionally rapidly, and visibly, on a galactic timescale. So the seemingly logical argument that life should be extremely common, begs the question... well then where is it?
    - pstuart 3y ago
      With our current technology, long distance space travel is out of the question -- just getting to the moon is challenging and Mars is still a dream. I love me some Star Trek so I have hope of greater things but I'll never get a chance to see it.
      - somenameforme 3y ago
        I wouldn't say it's that far off at all. All of the component technologies are already present, and really have been for decades. The first NASA flyby plan of Mars was planned in the mid 60s, and set for 1976. It was scuttled due to budgetary issues. The only problem is $$$ and risk. We're happy to casually spend hundreds of billions of dollars on obscure geopolitical goals half way around the world, but fight nickle and dime for visionary goals that might genuinely positively reshape humanity. And the other issue will be risk. Most early colonists will, in all probability, not meet pleasant ends - like literally every colonization effort, ever. And so it's important to have a society that can recognize and praise them for their bravery, try to prevent what killed them from killing the next batch, and immediately continue carrying on.
troyvit 3y ago
You're one of the lucky 10,000![1] https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/

uolmir 3y ago

It's always great for more people to know this. As another comment said, this is in no way "new" information. In fact, it may be interesting for you and others to read about the long study of organic compounds in meteorites. You could start with Murchison[1], which contains not just simple molecules, but over 70 amino acids. It even smells. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murchison_meteorite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murchison_meteorite

pstuart 3y ago

It's not an unreasonable proposition but life had to have an origin somewhere, so if it came from space where did that source come from? Deep sea thermal vents seem like a reasonable origin as well.

cryptoz 3y ago
I like playing with the odds and changing the unknowns to extremes in my head - what if abiogenesis is relatively common given the right conditions and enough time, and also that panspermia is common. This would mean that life could both easily arise alone on a planet and also the universe would be strewn with asteroids scattered everywhere carrying single-celled organisms/simple life. Ignoring the question of the likelihood of intelligent life out there, I do wonder if maybe the universe is full of lush planets with lots of related lifeforms across trillions of star systems. Could life even cross into new galaxies this way? I dunno! But it's fun to think about.
- lawlessone 3y ago
  I wonder if there's bits of dinosaurs in space from the impact that killed them. We have Mars meteors that hit Earth. Maybe Mars has Earth Meteors?
- somenameforme 3y ago
  The most interesting thing about it though is the Fermi Paradox. Our species entire existence isn't even a blink on a galactic timescale. And in another blink we will likely have spread all around this galaxy, and perhaps even further. If we imagine things that are already reasonably viable like exploratory swarms - glorified robotic 3d printers that can harvest their own material for further self replication and spread, we'll be absolutely everywhere in no time. The implications of this being that advanced life will likely tend to expand exceptionally rapidly, and visibly, on a galactic timescale. So the seemingly logical argument that life should be extremely common, begs the question... well then where is it?
  - pstuart 3y ago
    With our current technology, long distance space travel is out of the question -- just getting to the moon is challenging and Mars is still a dream. I love me some Star Trek so I have hope of greater things but I'll never get a chance to see it.
    - somenameforme 3y ago
      I wouldn't say it's that far off at all. All of the component technologies are already present, and really have been for decades. The first NASA flyby plan of Mars was planned in the mid 60s, and set for 1976. It was scuttled due to budgetary issues. The only problem is $$$ and risk. We're happy to casually spend hundreds of billions of dollars on obscure geopolitical goals half way around the world, but fight nickle and dime for visionary goals that might genuinely positively reshape humanity. And the other issue will be risk. Most early colonists will, in all probability, not meet pleasant ends - like literally every colonization effort, ever. And so it's important to have a society that can recognize and praise them for their bravery, try to prevent what killed them from killing the next batch, and immediately continue carrying on.

troyvit 3y ago

You're one of the lucky 10,000![1] https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/