An alternate point of view that differs from 'deep impact' disasters - We are stardust, we are golden!?
Could comet strikes be spreading seeds of life?
Updated Sun. Aug. 9 2009 7:42 AM ET - Jonathan Fahey, Forbes.com
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNew...90509/20090809
While Kaib has been working for the comets' defense, Chandra Wickramasinghe, director of the Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology at Cardiff University in Wales, has been comet's PR man: He has been gathering evidence to support his long-held belief that comets are not only not menacing, they are responsible for life on earth.
Wickramasinghe, who has spent his career helping modernize the ancient theory of panspermia, the idea that seeds of life are scattered throughout the universe, published a study recently that he says shows that comets harbored oceans in which life could have flourished...
For most of earth's history, it has been protected from comet strikes by Jupiter and Saturn. The planets are so big that when comets are pushed into an orbit that would send them toward the inner solar system, where earth sits, the giant planets' gravity deflects them safely askew.