Dust ejected from eco-planets into interstellar space may contain traces of life. In this respect informs University of Tokyo.
The space between the stars is filled with diluted gas and dust. This substance plays a decisive role in the evolution of galaxies and the birth of star systems, and is also a substrate for many chemical reactions.
Tomonori Totani suggested looking for traces of life in this dust. In his opinion, in a collision with a habitable meteorite planet, some of the land could be thrown into space – this happens regularly in the solar system, and many Martian meteorites have been found on Earth. In this case, very small fragments (about one micron) could potentially leave the planetary system and end up in interstellar space. Dust particles, on the other hand, may contain samples of single-celled organisms or chemical traces of life.
At the same time, Totani concedes that the chances of such dust particles entering the solar system are incredibly low – the galaxy is huge, and heat and other factors can destroy any traces of life. But according to the scientist, about 100,000 such grains could land on Earth every year. Hypothetically, such material could accumulate in Antarctica’s ice or bottom sediments, but separating extrasolar material from material originating from the solar system is still difficult. Another method involves launching dust collectors into space, such as the American Stardust, which has been in space since 1999.