We explain what the theory of Panspermia is, how it explains the origin of life on Earth and who developed. Theory of Panspermia is a theory that maintains that life on planet Earth is of extraterrestrial origin .
Its name comes from the Greek and is made up of the words pan (“all”) and sperma (“seed”). It was stated for the first time in 1865, by Hermann Richter (1808-1876) and other biological scholars .
Theory of Panspermia;5 Facts.
Other scientists who supported this theory were the Swedish chemist Svante August Arrhenius (1859-1927), winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1903, and the English astronomer Fred Hoyle (1915-2001), although it was the Swedish scientist who contributed the most with his diffusion.
There are two possible hypothetical models for the operation of this theory:
- natural panspermia. It proposes that life arrived on planet Earth through meteoritesor comets from space , which impacted on its surface and “contaminated” it with primitive life forms from other stars .
- Directed or artificial panspermia. It proposes that life arrived on our planet as part of a deliberate process of transporting microorganismsor even living things by some kind of higher entity or intergalactic technology.
The Panspermia Theory is controversial and has both evidence that could support it and issues that it cannot resolve. On the one hand, the very adverse conditions in which some types of bacteria manage not only to survive, but also to reproduce, are known , such as 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 distant planets .
However, this theory does not allow explaining 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 is far from what is contemplated in the Scientific Method and what is taken seriously by science .
