Giovanni F. Bignami

We are looking for alien life, yet there is a fair chance that we are the alien life. According to Giovanni Bignami, we may be the Martians. The basic building blocks of life or even simple microorganisms may have travelled to Earth from different solar systems inside comets or from other planets snuggled in a rock's crevices, and given birth to life here. It's not so far fetched apparently. Comets may have come from different star discs than our own Sun and are in themselves a great environment for life with their composition rich in carbon and water. Also, various bacteria have been shown capable of surviving the environment outside of the International Space Station for many months and, therefore, not unlikely survivors of interplanetary travel. Speculation aside, some amino acids of the kind not encountered on Earth have been shown to survive in at least one Martian meteorite that has fallen onto Earth.

This is what seems to be the gist of this popular science book, but there are many more interesting tidbits, facts and factoids there, even some fragments from literature by Italo Calvino, no more no less. It's a nicely written book marrying current research in cosmology with biology. Abysmally translated from Italian into English, though, but not as badly as to interfere with the meaning or reading enjoyment.… (altro)