Some 65 million years ago the greatest asteroid impact in a billion years may have sown life throughout the solar system, even as it ravaged life on Earth. Blasted debris escaped Earth’s gravitational force forming irregular orbits around the sun, eventually finding its way to the planets and moons of the solar system. Mars was eventually dusted with the debris and according to a 2013 study in the journal Astrobiology, the 14-kilometer-wide object ejected tens of thousands of pounds of impact rubble that may have landed on Saturn’s moon, Titan and on Europa and Callisto, which orbit Jupiter – all satellites that scientists believe harbor promising habitats for life. Mathematical models indicate that at least some of this debris still carried living microbes.
Life returned very quickly to the Chicxulub crater after the asteroid hit Earth with an impact equivalent to 10 billion Hiroshima bombs. Microfossils found in the core sample show that life at the crater reappeared after about 30,000 years, roughly when it reappeared in other locations, according to , Christopher Lowery, a researcher at the University of Texas-Austin. “You see that resurgence across the globe”, he added.
