It’s probably just a matter of time before scientists have the technology to detect signs of life on extraterrestrial planets, but where did that life come from to begin with? Did it just pop up out of nowhere, or might it have come from another source located in the depths of space?
Astrophysicists from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) are attempting to tackle this very issue, and in new research accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, they demonstrate that if life can travel between the stars, it would spread in a particular pattern that we could identify here on Earth.
As Discovery News explains, advanced technology could enable scientists to not only seek out the signatures of alien life in the atmospheres of far-off planets, but could continue to track those signals as those life forms spread like a virus throughout the entire cosmos (a process known as panspermia). The research was conducted by CfA researchers Henry Lin and Avi Loeb.
“In our theory clusters of life form, grow, and overlap like bubbles in a pot of boiling water,” Lin said, with Loeb adding that life “could spread from host star to host star in a pattern similar to the outbreak of an epidemic… The Milky Way galaxy would become infected with pockets of life.”
Seeds would need to spread quickly to be detected
The authors explain that there are two basic ways in which life can travel beyond the star from where it originated: through natural processes such as gravitational slingshots from asteroids or comets, or for intelligence lifeforms to deliberately travel further out into space.
Their study does not address the ways in which panspermia could occur; rather, it investigates if we would be able to detect it, and concludes that we could indeed. Their model suggests that the seeds of life would depart from a point of origin and spread outwards in all directions.
If seeds can make it to a habitable planet orbiting a nearby star, it can start taking root there, the study authors said. Eventually, this process may result in the development of several worlds that supporting life across the entire galaxy. The seeds of life could gain a foothold on the planet they travel to and begin sprouting life in this environment, ultimately repeating the process.
Once scientists are able to pinpoint signs of life in the atmospheres of other planets, the next step will be to look for a pattern of panspermia. However, Lin and Loeb caution that such a pattern will only be detectable if life spreads fairly rapidly, because stars which are currently neighbors slowly drift apart from one another, and this would blur out the patterns of these clusters.
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