Hacker News Reader

The article mentions that similar fossilized diatoms are found in terrestrial rock dating back to the time of the dinosaur's extinction (believed to be from a large impact). Is it possible that these meteorites are ejecta from that impact, or even an earlier one?

View on HN

interesting. I guess we can't really exclude the possibility, that this fossilized diatom cam from earth, traveled through space and came back to earth?

It's also possible that live diatoms were ejected and subsequently fossilized. Or even possibly that they continued to live and reproduce in space (diatoms are ~algae, so they really only need water and sunlight).

Definitely can't exclude that, and it's a testable hypothesis. We can compare rock compositions and determine with a fair degree of accuracy if it's a match for a terrestrial source.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com