Since some bacteria, plants, and even small animals — known as tardigrades — can survive in space, it is possible that these organisms could also get caught in the dust conveyor belt and hitch a ride to another planet. The same mechanism outlined in the study also allows for distant planets within the same solar system to exchange atmospheric particles with one another.“The proposition that space dust collisions could propel organisms over enormous distances between planets raises some exciting prospects of how life and the atmospheres of planets originated,” said Berera in a press release . “The streaming of fast space dust is found throughout planetary systems and could be a common factor in proliferating life.”