Abstract
We present a simple model for estimating the probability of interplanetary
panspermia in the recently discovered system of seven planets orbiting the
ultracool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1, and find that panspermia is potentially orders
of magnitude more likely to occur in the TRAPPIST-1 system compared to the
Earth-to-Mars case. As a consequence, we argue that the probability of
abiogenesis is greatly enhanced on the TRAPPIST-1 planets compared to the Solar
system. By adopting models from theoretical ecology, we show that the number of
species transferred and the number of life-bearing planets is also likely to be
higher, because of the increased rates of immigration. We propose observational
metrics for evaluating whether life was initiated by panspermia on multiple
planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system. These results are also applicable to
habitable exoplanets and exomoons in other planetary systems.
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