Why there’s a little bit of alien in all of us earthlings

EVERY one of us contains alien atoms originating in another galaxy, a study has found.

Scientists discovered that up to half the matter making up the Milky Way, which encompasses our solar system, came from other clusters of stars.

The Sun, the Earth, and even our own bodies probably contain a large proportion of galaxy-hopping material.

In the study, published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, researchers used supercomputers to simulate the formation of galaxies.

They spotted signs of atoms migrating from small galaxies to larger neighbours, with some particles travelling distances of up to one million light years.

Lead researcher Dr Daniel Angles-Alcazar, from Northwestern University in the US, said: ‘Given how much of the matter out of which we formed may have come from other galaxies, we could consider ourselves space travellers or galactic immigrants.’

Professor Claude-Andre Faucher-Giguere, who coauthored the study, said: ‘Our origins are much less local than we previously thought.’