Viruses are likely to be widespread across the cosmos, says expert. The good news is that most if not all are unlikely to pose threats to space-faring humans.

As this wretched COVID-19 disease has so acutely demonstrated, we live in an ecological duopoly of predator versus prey. Nothing about this set-up is going to change. At least a part of this microbial world is going to continue to wreak havoc on humans anytime it can.

Thus, in our current quest to move off-world, first to the Moon and Mars, then even further afield what are the chances that any given exo-earth will also harbor microbes that will be lethal to other living organisms? In other words, will this predator versus prey dynamic play out on a grand cosmic scale?

Most if not all ecosystems on Earth depend on some life forms feeding on other life forms for energy or other nutrients. I don’t see any reason that this would not be similar on exoplanets that harbor life, Ken Stedman, a virologist at Portland State University in Oregon, told me.