The Earth could be scattering the seeds of life throughout our galaxy. Microbes could ride on specks of dust, powered by the sun's rays, says William Napier, an astronomer at Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland, in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The Leonids, enigmatic visitors from outer space, will arrive after midnight on Thursday, slamming into the Earth's atmosphere at 158,000 mph - 40 times the speed of a bullet - and burn up. If astronomers' predictions are right, the shooting stars could light up the heavens at the rate of 20 a minute.

Astronomers confessed last night that they were puzzled by mysterious dark bands of shadow across the sky during Wednesday's eclipse.