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Originally Posted by Taks
couple comments/questions i'd like to add for consideration...
1) wouldn't the impact of radiation be reduced significantly within the comet? certainly surface organisms would be damaged quickly, but inside the heart of the comet it may be a different story. if i'm not mistaken, water is what is generally used to shield human observers from radioactive rods in older model nuclear reactors (as well as for cooling).
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No level of shielding from material can protect against every type of radiation indefinitely. Some radiation will always get through, even through lead. Keep in mind how long comets must be floating through radiation in order to reach Earth. Could be millions of years, easily.
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2) we're talking about microorganisms perhaps even less complex than viri or bacteria, not seeds. would that make a difference in long-term viability?
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It could, but not necessarily.
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overall, i've always thought the idea that the "spark" that started things off came from somewhere else we interesting, but it has obvious problems. first, it's probably not provable. second, it only pushes off the original start of life to some other planet. it is just as plausible to say that the amino acids lined up to form the first life here as it is somewhere else, actually moreso for here simply because that is the only true evidence we have to date (the evidence being life is proven here, unproven anywhere else). i'm afraid we may never know the answers to this particular issue.
taks
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To back you up, I think it would be more likely that the basic components of organic chemistry may have arrived on comets. I don't imagine any viable spores or seeds arrived. Then again, DNA could have been in comets and then hammered by cosmic rays so much that the coded ATCG chains could have been pulped into mush. Still, it would be a random stew of organic chemicals that could have been a crucible for life.