Asteroid impact on Earth could have sent life speeding towards Titan

Asteroid impact on Earth could have sent life speeding towards Titan

Scientists have announced that the impact of asteroids crashing into Earth could have taken life to Saturn's moon Titan. This could have happened, they argue, by the implantation of the terrestrial rocks that would have been blown away into space by the impact of the asteroids.

Speaking at the Planetary Science Conference in Houston, Texas, Dr Brett Gladman of the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver said that 600 million fragments could have been launched into space around the Sun's orbit after an impact such as the one that created a crater in Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico.

That crater, which is 160 and 240 kilometers wide, is believed to have been carved out after an asteroid strike 65 million years ago. Gladman and colleagues created computer models to plot the path of the fragments that could have escape velocities to carry them as far away as Jupiter and Saturn.

The researchers targeted Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's moon Titan and possible destinations of these fragments. The reason is that Titan contains rich organic deposits that can support primitive life forms, while Europa is thought to harbor a liquid water ocean under its crust.

The scientists calculated that an estimated 20 pieces would hit Titan at speeds of at 10-15 km/s and some microbes could survive this, but Jupiter's gravity meant that they would strike Europa at 25 km/s, which they said was not good for survival of microbes. "It's frustrating if you're a microbe that's been wandering the Universe for a million years to then die striking the surface of Europa," Dr Gladman commented.

When asked after his presentation if microbes could survive the freezing conditions in Titan, he replied, "That's for you people to decide, I'm just the pizza delivery boy."