panspermia

American  

[pan-spur-mee-uh] / pænˈspɜr mi ə /

Also panspermatism

noun

Biology.

1. the theory that life exists and is distributed throughout the universe in the form of germs or spores that develop in the right environment.

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Other Word Forms

• panspermic adjective

Etymology

Origin of panspermia

1835–45; < New Latin < Greek panspermía mixture of all seeds. See pan-, -sperm, -ia

Example Sentences

The study also briefly considers directed panspermia, a controversial idea proposed by Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel.

From Science Daily

Inspired in part by the organic networks generated by fungi, Covey fills her pictures with repeated organic forms, whether the animal skeletons of “Broken Earth” or the firefly-like pinpoints of “Panspermia III.”

From Washington Post

Alternatively, life could have been transported by rocks that traveled between planets through a process called panspermia.

From Scientific American

We should also keep in mind the very remote possibility that life was seeded in the inner solar system by an “extrasolar gardener,” namely through “directed panspermia”.

From Scientific American

It is also worth noting that the new paper on tardigrades does poke a hole in the panspermia hypothesis, which posits that life may have developed on Earth after being brought here by an asteroid or other celestial body that slammed into our planet.

From Salon