“Sithamparam et al. introduce a new concept where materials could potentially be a Panspermia “seed” instead of organisms. Such a material-based Panspermia seed, exemplified by prebiotic polyester gels, must be capable of enduring spaceflight that would eventually land on a planet to begin chemical evolution processes. The image shows a meteorite carrying such gels falling to a liquid body of an exoplanet resembling those in the planetary system of the star TRAPPIST-1. The gels (in green) then phase transition into droplets that interact with the ambient environment’s chemical space and go on to become “life” of some sort (in violet).”

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Authors:

* Mahendran Sithamparam, postgraduate student at the Space Science Centre, IPI UKM

* Tony Z. Jia, Assistant Professor and Lab Manager at ELSI, and an affiliated researcher at the Blue Marble Space Institue of Science (BMSIS), USA

* Kuhan Chandru, researcher at the Space Science Centre, IPI UKM