Asteroid shock: Space rock collisions ‘can provide the seeds of life’

There is, for example, carbon monoxide in the form of ices on the comets or asteroids because they spend most of the time far away from the Sun where they are cold, so all those volatiles are in ices.

And it is only when they approach planets like Earth, they heat and are released into the atmosphere.

Professor Wyatt believes this astroid theory, coupled with the discovery of thousands of exoplanets, means alien life does likely exist.

He said: “We know statistically one in every other star, has a planet around it.

“I think the direction everything’s going in is that planets are going to be common, which means that habitable planets – those in the habitable zone – are going to be common.