Related Experiment Video
Updated: Dec 23, 2025

Surface Mapping of Earth-like Exoplanets using Single Point Light Curves
Published on: May 10, 2020
Possible Transfer of Life by Earth-Grazing Objects to Exoplanetary Systems
1Department of Astronomy, Harvard University, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
Abstract:
Recently, a 30-cm object was discovered to graze the Earth's atmosphere and shift into a Jupiter-crossing orbit. We use the related survey parameters to calibrate the total number of such objects. The number of objects that could have exported terrestrial microbes out of the Solar System is in the range 2 × 10 9 - 3 × 10 11 . We find that 10 7 - 10 9 such objects could have been captured by binary star systems over the lifetime of the Solar System. Adopting the fiducial assumption that one polyextremophile colony is picked up by each object, the total number of objects carrying living colonies on them upon capture could be 10- 10 3 .
Related Concept Videos
Types of Genetic Transfer Between Organisms
Types of Genetic Transfer Between Organisms
The Colonization of Land
Acceleration due to Gravity on Other Planets
Astronomical observations are thus used to measure the acceleration due to gravity on other planets. This can be determined by observing the effect of a planet's gravity on objects close to it. The crucial factor that helps in this...
Export of Mitochondrial and Chloroplast Genes
Conditions on Early Earth

