This article was originally published at Eos. The publication contributed the article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.
A sizable asteroid impact generally obliterates anything alive nearby. But the aftermath of such a cataclysm can actually function like an incubator for life. Researchers studying a Finnish impact structure found minerals whose chemistry implies that microbes were present roughly 4 million years after the impact. These findings, which were published in Nature Communications last month, shed light on how rapidly microscopic life colonizes a site after an asteroid impact.
