Impacts 'more likely' to have spread life from Earth

[David Entwistle]

BBC News report on the work of Mauricio Reyes-Ruiz of the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Asteroid impacts on the Earth may have scattered more life-bearing debris to Mars, Jupiter or beyond our Solar System than previously thought.

Vast computer simulations of debris thrown up from Earth impacts show 100 times more particles end up on Mars than prior studies have shown.

The highest-energy impacts drive debris all the way to Jupiter, which hosts two moons that may be amenable to life...

[David Entwistle]

I see that Ron Baalke has posted a link to the article which is the source of this story on the Metlist. It makes interesting reading and, although the starting conditions for the simulations are somewhat artificial, suggests that meteorites, with an Earthly origin, are quite possible.

Dynamics of escaping Earth ejecta and their collision probability with different Solar System bodies
M. Reyes-Ruiz, C.E. Chavez, M.S. Hernandez, R. Vazquez, H. Aceves, P.G. Nuñez
arXiv:1108.3375v1 [astro-ph.EP]