Scientists have found microorganisms crawling over a sample retrieved from the 200 million-mile-distant asteroid Ryugu. But they almost certainly came from Earth.

Panspermia is the hypothesis that life can survive the transfer between planetary bodies as a secondary path for life to get started on planets throughout a solar system. The discovery of extraterrestrial life on asteroids or within meteorites would have profound implications for understanding the origins and distribution of life in the universe.

The microorganisms were seen crawling over a sample which was brought from 200 million-mile-distant asteroid Ryugu