[meteorite-list] Earth Ejecta Could Have Seeded Life on Europa

From: Matthias Bärmann <majbaermann_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2011 02:10:28 +0200
Message-ID: <A0D5EE9558954BC080D605F47CEB1627_at_thinkcentre>

That reads breathtakingly interesting - thanks, Ron,

and best regards,
Matthias


----- Original Message -----
From: "Ron Baalke" <baalke at zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>
To: "Meteorite Mailing List" <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Thursday, August 25, 2011 1:47 AM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Earth Ejecta Could Have Seeded Life on Europa


>
> http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27092/
>
> Earth Ejecta Could Have Seeded Life on Europa
> Technology Review (MIT)
> August 22, 2011
>
> Life-carrying rocks ejected from Earth by asteroid impacts could have
> made their way to Jupiter and beyond, say astronomers
>
> Astronomers have long studied meteorites that have clearly come from the
> Moon and Mars. These are the result of massive asteroid impacts which
> eject material with such force that it ends up in interplanetary space,
> eventually being washed up here.
>
> This raises an interesting question: how much Earth ejecta could have
> ended up elsewhere in the Solar System?
>
> Various astronomers have studied this question by simulating how far
> test particles can travel after being ejected from Earth. Their
> conclusion is that it's relatively easy for bits of Earth to end up on
> the Moon or Venus. But very little would get to Mars because it would
> have to overcome both the Sun and the Earth's gravity.
>
> Today, Mauricio Reyes-Ruiz at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de
> Mexico and a few pals reveal the results of the biggest simulation of
> Earth ejecta ever undertaken. And they have a surprise.
>
> These guys have created a computer model in which 10,242 test particles
> are ejected from Earth into the Solar System. They've run the model five
> times, increasing the average velocity of the ejected particles each time.
>
> What they've found is quite a surprise. First up, the number of particle
> that end up on Mars is two orders of magnitude greater than previous
> studies have found.
>
> But the biggie is that, at higher ejection speeds, particles are much
> more likely to end up hitting Jupiter than Mars.
>
> That could have significant implications for the possibility that life
> on Earth could have travelled elsewhere. In these simulations, the
> Mexican team followed the test particles for up to 30,000 years, which
> is the length of time that astrobiologists believe Earth's hardiest
> lifeforms might survive in space.
>
> So that raises the possibility that Earth could have seeded life on
> Jovian moons such as Europa, which many astronomers believe has a large
> ocean. However, the Mexican team doesn't simulate the number of
> particles that hit Jovian moons, only Jupiter itself.
>
> Another surprise is that, at the higher ejection speeds, many particles
> end up leaving the Solar System entirely. In fact, far more end up in
> interstellar space than on all the planets combined, including those
> that return to Earth.
>
> If these particles can preserve life from Earth for even longer periods
> than astrobiologists think, then at this very moment, life from Earth
> could be speeding its way towards distant stars.
>
> Ref: http://arxiv.org/abs/1108.3375 : Dynamics Of Escaping Earth Ejecta
> And Their Collision Probability With Different Solar System Bodies
>
>
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Received on Wed 24 Aug 2011 08:10:28 PM PDT