By 
December 13th, 2022
Will humankind feel motivated to seed lifeless planets with tough terrestrial organisms or synthetic forms crafted to live long and prosper on a targeted planet?
That question is explored in a new research paper that looks to comets as possible “biological delivery vehicles.”
This intriguing paper – “Directed Panspermia Using Interstellar Comets” – appears in a special issue of the Astrobiology journal dedicated to Interstellar Objects in Our Solar System.
Biochemical signatures
“It may be that habitable planets are common but life is rare. If future advances in telescopes increasingly suggest this is so, humankind might feel motivated to seed lifeless planets with resilient terrestrial organisms or synthetic forms designed to thrive on the target planet,” the paper suggests.
Authored by space specialists, Christopher McKay, Paul Davies and Simon Worden, they note it is conceivable that terrestrial life was deliberately seeded in this matter. That hypothesis could be tested if we found evidence for life on other solar system bodies that displayed common basic biochemical signatures.
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA
Scenario assessment
In their scenario assessment, the paper adds, “raises a number of ethical and technological challenges that need to be addressed.” Chief among them is whether humans have the right to modify the environments of other astronomical bodies.
If they do, how much control would humankind have over the far downstream impact? “Safeguards that fall under the general category of ‘planetary protection’ need to be carefully assessed and protocols established for any future projects of this sort,” the researchers explain.
“Until recently, the idea that humans could literally sow the seeds of a cosmic transformation having multi-million-year downstream consequences would have been regarded as absurd,” the paper states. “But the discovery of interstellar comets has changed all that.”
Credit: Johns Hopkins/APL
Life suitably constructed
Harnessing comets as biological delivery vehicles is a capability not technically achievable today, but the paper adds that “there is no difficulty in understanding what is needed to do so and in refining the strategy to achieve the goal of seeding the galaxy with life suitably constructed to thrive in a variety of exoplanetary environments.”
The paper concludes: “Whether it is desirable to do so must rest with future generations.”
To access the research paper – “Directed Panspermia Using Interstellar Comets” – go to:
Posted in Space News
