Page "Panspermia" Paragraph 8

* Space is a damaging environment for life, as it would be exposed to radiation, cosmic rays and stellar winds.

Studies of bacteria frozen in Antarctic glaciers have shown that DNA has a half-life of 1. 1 million years under such conditions, suggesting that while life may have potentially moved around within the Solar System it is unlikely that it could have arrived from an interstellar source.

Environments may exist within meteors or comets that are somewhat shielded from these hazards.

However, the extreme resistance of Deinococcus radiodurans to radiation, cold, dehydration and vacuum shows that at least one known organism is capable of surviving the hazards of space without need for special protection.