Exploratour: NASA's Exploration for Life

This is an image of Comet Kohoutek.
Click on image for full size
NASA

Read about the theory of Comet origin of life

Exporatour: Life on Earth

Believe it or not, many scientists believe that life may have begun on these distant, solar system traveling objects. Out in their distant home, the Oort Cloud, comets are exposed to the energy needed to form long, complex molecules akin to life's basic molecules. Because comets periodically migrate to the inner solar system and swoop around the sun, spilling portions of their surfaces in their wakes, it is thought that comets may have brought some of life's beginnings to the inner solar system where they could thrive.

NASA currently supports research on understanding comet's role in the formation of life, and there are many missions to comets in the planning phase whose purpose is to contribute to our understanding of these mysterious objects.

Read more about comets by reading our comet section. Read more about different sort of unsophisticated life forms found on the primordial Earth by taking the Exporatour of Life on Earth.

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Windows to the Universe, a project of the National Earth Science Teachers Association, is sponsored in part is sponsored in part through grants from federal agencies (NASA and NOAA), and partnerships with affiliated organizations, including the American Geophysical Union, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Earth System Information Partnership, the American Meteorological Society, the National Center for Science Education, and TERC. The American Geophysical Union and the American Geosciences Institute are Windows to the Universe Founding Partners. NESTA welcomes new Institutional Affiliates in support of our ongoing programs, as well as collaborations on new projects. Contact NESTA for more information. NASA ESIP NCSE HHMI AGU AGI AMS NOAA