Are we the aliens? Scientists say Earth could be sending life to Venus

According to a BBC Sky at Night Magazine report, researchers at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories suggest microscopic life blasted off Earth by asteroid impacts could have reached Venus’s atmosphere over billions of years.

Using computer models based on the “pancake model” of atmospheric fragmentation, the team estimated roughly 100 microbial cells could reach Venus’s temperate cloud layer annually, totalling about 20 billion cells over a billion years.

The study, exploring the lithopanspermia hypothesis, focuses on the milder conditions found 50–65km above Venus’s surface. Researchers stressed the findings are theoretical, not evidence of existing life, as new missions including NASA’s DAVINCI and ESA’s Envision prepare to study the planet.