What if life breathed from the stones, giving form to the plants, trees, animals, and humans? The molecules that make up DNA have been discovered in extraterrestrial rocks.

It is a common belief that if you make a wish upon a shooting star, it will come true. As meteors make their way from the sky to the Earth, they light up, creating a spectacle that has captivated humans since the dawn of humanity. In ancient times, people believed these were departed spirits on their way to heaven, an omen to communicate with the other realms.

I have wished upon these burning stars, even if educational institutions trained me to believe in reasons and not in superstitions.

Yet, I wonder, what is heaven? Is it a place where deities and angels delve, or a space where stars perform their sacred dance bound by each other’s gravity?

The sun is a loner; he was once born in a family of stars but eventually separated, influenced by the gravity of the unknown. But his own gravity was compelling enough for small planets to be formed and revolve around him. This lonely star has circled the Milky Way 20 times since his birth. In his journey, the Earth has been his companion too and, for the blink of an eye, also humankind.

We are all travellers here: the galaxies, the stars, the Earth and all that lives within her. What if life were also travelling, from one planet to another?

Even though there is a lack of evidence, I believe in the possibility of life veiled in other realms. I have been conditioned by Hindu mythologies that spoke of heaven and different abodes of god, but these mythologies are everywhere and in every religion; perhaps some part of it also lives in the scientific world.

Panspermia is a scientific theory that proposes life exists throughout the universe; it travels through space dust, asteroids and meteorites, and when it finds a viable condition, it grows. Much like the dormant dispersing seeds, waiting patiently to awaken. Perhaps what happens on the Earth happens in the heavens too.

Yet, when does life exactly become life? How does it cross the boundary of non-living and enter the world of living?

The basic ingredients that create life were not forged here on Earth but in space, before the first fire lit in our sun’s core. The molecule bases that make up RNA and DNA, the building blocks of protein, amino acids, and sugar, have all been found in extraterrestrial rocks.

Physicist Roberto Battiston suggests that the planets communicate with each other through interstellar debris; even though we haven’t brought any samples from Mars, there are over 300 Martian rocks on Earth. 

The first forms of life that arrived on Earth—lichens, bacteria, and spores—have proven to survive in the vacuum of space, going into a dormant state and waking when the conditions are viable.

When thinking of creation, through stories and myths our imagination reaches space, humans descending from heavens to Earth. Our mind does not acknowledge the first creators of our world, and perhaps even other worlds could be tiny bacterial creatures seeding life from scratch, slowly mastering the atmosphere to thrive and create more and new forms. These are the creatures that have proven their resilience to all the past extinctions.

Even if life could come from somewhere else, it’s only here it has evolved as we know it. Every moment of catastrophe and boon has birthed our human and more-than-human world, in accordance with Earth’s environment. 

We are a probability in flesh.

There is plenty to revere here, from deities to rocks; perhaps there is some truth in animism.

The other day as I was walking, I looked at the sun setting and wondered if the sun is alive. I can’t be certain, but yet what gives me life couldn’t possibly be without it.

Words by Priyanka Singh Parihar,

Founder and Editor-in-Chief