Life on planets such as Earth or Mars could have been seeded by electrically charged microbes from space.
Dehel calculated the effect of electric fields at various levels in the atmosphere on a bacterium that was carrying an electric charge. He showed that such bacteria could easily be ejected from the Earth's gravitational field by the same kind of electromagnetic fields that generate auroras. And these fields occur every day, unlike the extraordinarily large surface impacts needed to eject interplanetary meteorites.
Dehel presented his findings at the biennial meeting of the international Committee on Space Research (COSPAR), in Beijing, China, this week.