Stardust findings. Implications for panspermia

TL;DR

The Stardust spacecraft's analysis of comet 81P/Wild 2 dust suggests early solar system material contained diverse compounds, supporting the idea that life could have been present in the primordial building blocks of planets.

Contribution

This paper links Stardust findings to the panspermia hypothesis, proposing that life or its building blocks were present in early solar system material.

Findings

Cometary dust contains materials from diverse solar nebula regions.

Evidence of mixing in the early solar system.

Supports possibility of early life in planetary building blocks.

Abstract

In January 2004, the Stardust spacecraft flew through the dust of comet 81P/Wild 2 and captured specks of the cometary dust. On analysis of the comet 81P/Wild 2 samples, it was found that they contain materials found in the coldest and hottest region of the early solar nebula, strongly suggesting 'mixing' on the grandest scale. Here it is suggested that if microorganisms were present in the early solar nebula, as required by the hypothesis of cometary panspermia, then in the light of the Stardust findings, life was already present in the very material that formed the planetary bodies.