Astronomer believes coronavirus came from ... outer space!

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The coronavirus is believed to have originated in Wuhan, China, and some speculate it came from a bioweapons lab there.

Now, a British professor says that while Wuhan may be the earthly origin, the virus likely came from outer space.

The Express newspaper of London reported mathematician, astronomer and astrobiologist Chandra Wickramasinghe of the Buckingham Centre for Astrobiology recently noted a remarkable fact.

It was in northeastern China where a fragment of a comet exploded in a brief flash last October, spewing out "hundreds of trillions" of particles.

"We think it probable that this contained embedded within it a monoculture of infective 2019-nCoV virus particles that survived in the interior of the incandescent meteor." Wickramasinghe told the London Express newspaper. "We consider the seemingly outrageous possibility that hundreds of trillions of infective viral particles were then released embedded in the form of fine carbonaceous dust. We believe infectious agents are prevalent in space, carried on comets, and can fall towards Earth through the troposphere."

Wickramasinghe worked for 40 years with famed English astronomer Fred Hoyle to develop the hypothesis of panspermia -- that life exists throughout the universe and is distributed by space dust and meteoroids.

The professor told the Express, "These, we think, can and have in the past gone on to bring about human disease epidemics."

The two believe the 1918 flu pandemic and certain outbreaks of polio and mad cow disease were triggered that way.

"We believe this could have happened with the novel coronavirus. While it is likely it arrived as a new infective agent, there could be an element of mutation triggered by DNA arriving in a similar manner," Wickramasingh said. "We have evidence that even in the human genome, 40% of our DNA is viral, and it has been incorporated during our evolution. There is growing evidence that says this DNA comes from space and it is carried into our atmosphere on micro-meteorites before dissipating. It is then taken up by bacteria and viruses. That new insert could have come from space. This disturbing outbreak is due to this, there is no doubt meteorites carry living structures.

The professor said the "pattern of further global spread of the new coronavirus is likely to follow a high level of person-to-person infectivity, the virus will then acquire endemic status."