According to one scientific theory, microscopic life may have flown on a rock from its home on Earth or Mars and landed on the moons of Jupiter or Saturn.

According to one scientific theory, microscopic life may have flown on a rock from its home on Earth or Mars and landed on the moons of Jupiter or Saturn.

The theory of life forms traveling through space on a rock to arrive on different planets or moons where it thrives is called lithopanspermia.

Other research suggests that large rocks blown into space from a meteor impact could protect organisms on the rocks for up to 10 million years in outer space.

Rachel Worth, an astrophysicist at Pennsylvania State University and lead author of a study on lithopanspermia is quoted as saying: “we don't really know the probability that an ejected rock fragment would have microbes in it, or that they would be the type of microbes that might survive all the trauma of ejection and space travel. There's also the question of just how habitable they might find the moons if they did make it there.”

Since life is believed to have started on Earth some 3 point 5 billion years ago, there have been an estimated 200 million meteoroids blasted off of our planet that were large enough to harbor life.

What do you think? Is it possible that life could travel to these distant moons on a piece of rock from Earth or Mars?