Scientists Say Canadian Bacteria Fossils May Be Earth’s Oldest

Re:Scientists Say Canadian Bacteria Fossils May Be Earth’s O... by sndean on Thursday March 02, 2017 @04:47PM (#13778548)

> If anyone could answer, I've always wondered how a hypothetical bacteria on an asteroid could survive impact with earth or any celestial body.

Thinking about it, my initial thought "part of the asteroid didn't get that hot" can't be right...

More likely [0], some components of the organism can remain intact after impact. Seeing papers like this one [1], where different components of a system can/do combine, or seeing one of the current theories for how mitochondria came to exist [2], makes me think extremely low probability combinations happen to workout sometimes. That, plus trillions of chances to happen.

[0] PhD, but not in astrobiology...

[1] http://www.cell.com/cell-host-microbe/pdfExtended/S1931-3128...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_hypothesis

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Scientists Say Canadian Bacteria Fossils May Be Earth’s O... by cgriswald on Thursday March 02, 2017 @05:25PM (#13778853)

> Thinking about it, my initial thought "part of the asteroid didn't get that hot" can't be right...

I'm not sure about objects large enough to explode on impact, but smaller objects heat up and ablate, thus removing the heat, leaving the remaining object maybe not that hot. Probably tons of variables, including what the meteor is made of, the shape of it, angle of impact, etc...

[ Parent | on HN ]