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We examine a low energy mechanism for the transfer of meteoroids between twoplanetary systems embedded in a star cluster using quasi-parabolic orbits ofminimal energy. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we find that the exchange ofmeteoroids could have been significantly more efficient than previouslyestimated. Our study is relevant to astrobiology as it addresses whether lifeon Earth could have been transferred to other planetary systems in the solarsystem's birth cluster and whether life on Earth could have been transferredhere from beyond the solar system. In the solar system, the timescale overwhich solid material was delivered to the region from where it could betransferred via this mechanism likely extended to several hundred million years(as indicated by the 3.8-4.0 Ga epoch of the Late Heavy Bombardment). Thistimescale could have overlapped with the lifetime of the Solar birth cluster(~100-500 Myr). Therefore, we conclude that lithopanspermia is an openpossibility if life had an early start. Adopting parameters from the minimummass solar nebula, considering a range of planetesimal size distributionsderived from observations of asteroids and Kuiper Belt Objects and theoreticalcoagulation models, and taking into account Oort Cloud formation models, theexpected number of bodies with mass > 10 kg that could have been transferredbetween the Sun and its nearest cluster neighbor could be of the order of1E14-3E16, with transfer timescales of 10s Myr. We estimate that of the orderof 3E8 x l(km) could potentially be life-bearing, where l(km) is the depth ofthe Earth crust in km that was ejected as the result of the early bombardment.

Chaotic exchange of solid material between planetary systems: implications for lithopanspermia