The Implications of 'Oumuamua on Panspermia
arXiv:2401.02390 · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ad57b8
Abstract
Panspermia is the hypothesis that life originated on Earth from the bombardment of foreign interstellar ejecta harboring polyextremophile microorganisms. Since the 2017 discovery of the interstellar body 'Oumuamua (1I/2017 U1) by the Pans-STARRS telescope, various studies have re-examined panspermia based on updated number density models that accommodate for 'Oumuamua's properties. By utilizing 'Oumuamua's properties as an anchor, we estimate the mass and number density of ejecta in the ISM (rho_m [kg au^-3] and rho_n [au^-3]). We build upon prior work by first accounting for the minimum ejecta size to shield microbes from supernova radiation. Second, we estimate the total number of impact events C_n on Earth after its formation and prior to the emergence of life (~0.8Gyr). We derive a conditional probability relation for the likelihood of panspermia for Earth specifically of <10^-5, given a number of factors including f_B, the fraction of ejecta harboring extremophiles and other factors that are poorly constrained. However, we find that panspermia is a plausible potential life-seeding mechanism for (optimistically) potentially up to ~10^5 of the ~10^9 Earth-sized habitable zone worlds in our Galaxy.
accepted to AAS journals, 14 pages, 3 figures
References in corpus (23)
- Most 1.6 Earth-Radius Planets are not Rocky
- No large population of unbound or wide-orbit Jupiter-mass planets
- Dynamics of the giant planets of the solar system in the gaseous proto-planetary disk and relationship to the current orbital architecture
- Exoplanet population inference and the abundance of Earth analogs from noisy, incomplete catalogs
- The Occurrence of Rocky Habitable Zone Planets Around Solar-Like Stars from Kepler Data
- Interstellar Interloper 1I/2017 U1: Observations from the NOT and WIYN Telescopes
- Initial characterization of interstellar comet 2I/Borisov
- The Natural History of 'Oumuamua
- Natural Transfer of Viable Microbes in Space from Planets in the Extra-Solar Systems to a Planet in our Solar System and Vice-Versa
- Evidence that 1I/2017 U1 (`Oumuamua) was composed of molecular hydrogen ice
- The Nucleus of Interstellar Comet 2I/Borisov
- Implications for planetary system formation from interstellar object 1I/2017 U1 (`Oumuamua)
- Could 1I/'Oumuamua be an icy fractal aggregate?
- Survey Simulations of a New Near-Earth Asteroid Detection System
- The Resilience of Life to Astrophysical Events
- A re-assessment of the Kuiper belt size distribution for sub-kilometer objects, revealing collisional equilibrium at small sizes
- High-fidelity Simulations of the Near-Earth Object Search Performance of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope
- Transfer of Rocks between Planetary Systems: Panspermia Revisited
- Potential long-term habitable conditions on planets with primordial H-He atmospheres
- Terrestrial Effects of Nearby Supernovae: Updated Modeling
- X-Ray Luminous Supernovae: Threats to Terrestrial Biospheres
- Interstellar planetesimals: potential seeds for planet formation?
- CHIMERA Occultation Constraints on the Abundance of Kilometer-scale Kuiper Belt Objects