Life can spread among planets

British scientists investigated the possibility of two neighboring planets outside the solar system exchanging life for each other.

With the number of planets that may exist, the extraterrestrial life is increasing, the possibility of presence of neighboring civilizations in the universe may occur. According to the IB Times, research by scientists at the Open University, England, explores this possibility by examining conditions that affect life on two planets with similar orbits. They published their findings in the Astrophysical Journal on November 30.

Kepler 36c planet seen from the surface of Kepler 36b.(Photo: NASA).

The study was inspired by the discovery of two neighboring planets Kepler 36b and Kepler 36c of the US Aerospace Agency (NASA), which orbits around the star Kepler 36. The orbit length of the two planets only 10% difference. According to calculations, after 6-7 years, Kepler 36b and Kepler 36c will go close to each other once.

The researchers wondered when the two neighboring planets approached each other periodically, which affected the tilt of the planetary axis. This is an important factor because major changes in axial inclination will strongly affect planetary climate. Climate change does not affect microorganisms very much, but can reduce the likelihood of more complex life organizations, making intelligent life difficult to evolve to create a civilization.

In the case of Kepler 36b and Kepler 36c, life is unlikely to exist because they are too close to the parent star. In addition, the surface temperature of the two planets is up to 1,000 degrees Celsius. The research group makes a more suitable hypothesis about two Earth-like planets with a trajectory length of 3: 2 and in the region. there may exist life from the parent star, where liquid water flows on the surface.

Scientists assume life exists on a planet and want to find out if it can spread to the other planet. They put forward the premise that bacteria living on rock could survive after being thrown off the planet, drifting in space and landing on another planet's surface. An experiment on a shuttle in 1990 showed that after 6 years in space, 30% of bacteria in salt crystals still survived.

EXOSTACK experiment examines the existence of microorganisms in space.(Photo: NASA).

The concept of life spreading from planet to planet through the meteor shower is called "lithopanspermia".

Research shows that lithopanspermia is most likely to occur when two planets have an orbit length of 7: 6, 6: 5, 4: 3 or 3: 2. This means, if life appears on one of the two planets, it will easily spread to the other planet.

The team noted that not all organisms can survive in the process. Although water bears, a microscopic invertebrate, survived many years in a vacuum, they could not withstand the impact or drift long distances in space. Single-celled microorganisms are the only species capable of successfully traveling from planet to planet.

Evolution from microorganisms to intelligent animals takes billions of years. Life on Earth takes two billion years to grow from bacteria to multicellular organisms, and over billion years to form intelligence and the ability to explore space. With such a long development process, the probability of two civilized and technological planets appearing in a given time is very small, whether they share a common ancestor or a continuous exchange of bacteria takes place. . For these reasons, the prospect of neighboring planets in the universe with similar civilizations is almost impossible to materialize.