Natural Transfer of Viable Microbes in Space from Planets in the Extra-Solar Systems to a P.pdfVIP

02/09/08 Natural Transfer of Viable Microbes in Space from Planets in the Extra- Solar Systems to a Planet in our Solar System and Vice-Versa Short title: Transfer of Microbes between solar systems Mauri Valtonen, 1 Pasi Nurmi, 1 Jia-Qing Zheng, 1 Francis A. Cucinotta, 2 John W. Wilson, 3 Gerda Horneck, 4 Lennart Lindegren, 5 Jay Melosh, 6 Hans Rickman, 7 Curt Mileikowsky 8 * 1 Tuorla Observatory, Turku University, FIN-21500 Piikki?, Finland. 2 NASA Johnson Space Center, 2101 NASA Road 1, Houston, TX 77058, USA 3 NASA Langley Research Center, Mail Stop 111, Hampton, VA 23681-2199, USA 4 Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, Linder H?he, D-51147 K?ln, Germany 5 Lund Observatory, Lund University, Box 43, SE-22100 Lund, Sweden 6 Department of Planetary Sciences, Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, 1629 East University Boulevard, Tucson, AZ 85721-0092, USA 7 Department of Astronomy and Space Physics, Uppsala University, Box 515, SE-75120 Uppsala, Sweden 8 Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), SE-10044 Stockholm, Sweden * Curt Mileikowsky deceased 24.6.2005. He directed this research until his death. To whom correspondence should be addressed: Dr. Mauri Valtonen FIN – 21500 Piikki? fax : +358 2 3338215 e-mail : mvaltonen2001@ Curt Mileikowsky 02/09/08 Natural Transfer of Viable Microbes Part 2 2 ABSTRACT We investigate whether it is possible that viable microbes could have been transported to Earth from the planets in extra-solar systems by means of natural vehicles such as ejecta expelled by comet or asteroid impacts on such planets. The probabilities of close encounters with other solar systems are taken into account as well as the limitations of bacterial survival times inside ejecta in space, caused by radiation and DNA decay. The conclusion is that no potentially DNA/RNA life-carrying ejecta from another solar system in the general Galactic star field landed on Earth before life