We explain what the Panspermia or Panspermism theory is, how it explains the origin of life on Earth and who developed it.
The panspermia theory holds that life comes from outer space.What is the panspermia theory?
The Theory of Panspermia or Panspermism is a theory that maintains that the life at planet Earth it is of extraterrestrial origin. Its name comes from the Greek and is made up of the words bread ("everything and sperm ("seed"). It was first enunciated in 1865, by Hermann Richter (1808-1876) and other scholars of the biology.
Other scientists who supported this theory were the Swedish chemist Svante August Arrhenius (1859-1927), winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1903, and the English astronomer Fred Hoyle (1915-2001), although it was the Swedish scientist who contributed the most to its dissemination.
There are two possible hypothetical models of operation of this theory:
- Natural panspermia. It proposes that life came to planet Earth through meteorites or kites coming from space, which impacted on its surface and "contaminated" it with primitive life forms, coming from other stars.
- Directed or artificial panspermia. It proposes that life arrived on our planet as part of a deliberate process of transporting microorganisms or even of living creatures, by some kind of higher entity or intergalactic technology.
The Panspermia Theory is controversial and has both evidence that could support it, as well as issues that it cannot resolve. On the one hand, the very adverse conditions in which some types of bacteria they manage not only to survive, but to reproduce, like the Extremophiles that inhabit some of the most inhospitable places on Earth.
This suggests, along with the disputed evidence of extraterrestrial microbial life found in the ALH84001 meteorite and the Murchison meteorite, that bacteria could survive outer space conditions and serve to colonize. planets far away.
However, this theory does not allow to explain the very origin of life, but is limited to passing its responsibility to extraterrestrial entities of which there is no indication of existence. Such a mechanism of thought it is far from what is contemplated in the Scientific method and taken seriously by the science.