Well, one premise is that the "building blocks of life" could easily have arrived via comets. From the article linked above:
Quote:
The best known theory of the origin of life on Earth is that it derived from complex molecules such as amino acids and sugars produced early in the planet's history by electrical discharges in an atmosphere replete with gases such as methane, hydrogen, ammonia and water. The famous Miller-Urey experiment in 1953, conducted by Stanley Miller and Harold Urey of the University of Chicago, demonstrated that a lightning-like discharge in a test tube filled with these molecules could produce amino acids.
Other scientists, however, have proposed that the building blocks of life arrived from space. Astronomers have detected many kinds of organic molecules in space, floating in clouds of gas or bound up in dust particles. They range from the simplest -- water, ammonia, methane, hydrogen cyanide and alcohols, including ethyl alcohol -- to more complex molecules, including chains of up to eight carbon atoms.
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Once thought to be simply silly, this idea seems to be gaining at least some supporters. Some take the idea even further suggesting that perhaps amino acid chains and even proteins might be able to exist in the cores of comets. Others go the whole nine yards and postulate that micro-organisms may even be able to survive a comet journey.
I came across this
pro panspermia site Here's a part of what they have to say:
Quote:
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Starting in the 1970s, British astronomers Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe rekindled interest in panspermia. By careful spectroscopic observation and analysis of light from distant stars they found new evidence, traces of life, in the intervening dust. They also proposed that comets, which are largely made of water-ice, carry bacterial life across galaxies and protect it from radiation damage along the way. One aspect of this research program, that interstellar dust and comets contain organic compounds, has been pursued by others as well. It is now universally accepted that space contains the "ingredients" of life. This development could be the first hint of a huge paradigm shift. But mainstream science has not accepted the hard core of modern panspermia, that whole cells seeded life on Earth.
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While panspermia certainly isn't a strong theory at this point, it could conceivably herald a quite a paradigm shift.