By Stephanie Dwilson | 2026-04-06

Researchers recently discovered that a certain type of microbe can withstand an asteroid impact and even survive the long trip to an entirely different planet.

The finding has huge implications, as it points to the possibility of bacteria hitchhiking to planets across the galaxy, aboard asteroids or spacecraft.

Earlier voyages could even have influenced how life began on Earth.

The Johns Hopkins University study, published in early March in PNAS Nexus, made the surprising revelation.

The research team tested an extremopohile desert bacterium called Deinococcus radiodurans. This microbe is considered one of the world’s toughest bacteria and is highly radiation-resistant, able to survive harrowing conditions.

They theorized that if any molecule could survive an asteroid trip, it would need to have similar characteristics.

For the experiment, the team simulated what the bacterium would experience in asteroid strike and ejection by firing a projectile moving 300 mph at it while the microbe was sandwiched between two metal plates.

The microbes survived 60% of the pressure tests at 2.4 gigapascals (GPa), and practically every test done at 1.4 GPa.

The lower pressure hits delivered no damage. In fact, the device holding the metal plates was broken before the bacteria died.

"We kept trying to kill it, but it was really hard to kill," the study's lead author Lily Zhao, a graduate student, said in a statement.

The study noted that the pressures the bacteria survived were "in the impact pressure regimes relevant to the development of ejecta during impact on Mars."

In addition, this bacteria demonstrated a much higher survival rate than was observed in other microbes from previous studies, like S. oneidensis or E. coli, which had less than a 10% survival rate.

"This is a really big deal that changes the way you think about the question of how life begins and how life began on Earth," senior author and engineer K.T. Ramesh said in a statement.

What this means for the bigger picture

The Johns Hopkins team's study has profound implications for future space policies and for human understanding of the origins of life on Earth.

Its findings support aspects of the panspermia hypothesis, which suggests life on Earth could have started from microorganisms that arrived from outer space.

This suggests "seeds" or "spores" of life can survive space travel and spread throughout the universe, leading to the "fertilization" of habitable planets, moons and satellites, per the Springer Nature Encyclopedia of Astrobiology.

"What that means is that life can potentially move between planets," Zhao said.

In the study’s abstract, the authors note that researchers and policymakers will have a lot to think about after this discovery.

"The work has significant consequences for considerations of planetary protection, spacecraft mission design, our understanding of where we might find extraterrestrial life, and lithopanspermia," the authors wrote.

Lithopanspermia refers to the way in which these particles could be transported, via "rocks" knocked off a world’s surface, according to NASA.

The team's finding is particularly important since space agencies already take extensive precautions to avoid contaminating other worlds with Earth's microbes, maintaining strict planetary protection guidelines.

The study dovetails well with studies on how long microbes can survive in inhospitable environments.

Researchers from NASA and The Pennsylvania State University, for example, found that amino acid pieces from E. coli could survive more than 50 million years if trapped in permafrost or ice caps on Mars.

Their findings were published in February in the Astrobiology journal.