Earth may have been seeding Venus with life for billions of years

New research explores a striking possibility: Earth may have been seeding the solar system with microbial life for billions of years. When asteroids collide with our planet, the impact can launch bacteria and other microbes into space. Some of these hardy microbes might survive the journey and settle in Venus' upper atmosphere. If future missions eventually detect life on Venus, scientists say there's a real chance it didn't originate there at all—it came from Earth, drifting through space as a cosmic hitchhiker.

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