Panspermia: A new look.

[Peron]

Could life have brought here from space, on some sort of comet?

New evidence suggest yes.

 

Samples of stratospheric air were collected on 21 January 2001 under the most stringent aseptic conditions by Indian scientists using the Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) cryogenic sampler payload flown on balloons from the Tata Institute Balloon Launching facility in Hyderabad. Part of the samples sent to Cardiff were analysed by a team at Cardiff University led by Professor David Lloyd and assisted by Melanie Harris.

 

Commenting on the results, Professor Wickramasinghe said: "There is now unambiguous evidence for the presence of clumps of living cells in air samples from as high as 41 kilometres, well above the local tropopause (16 km), above which no air from lower down would normally be transported."

 

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20010631230243data_trunc_sys.shtml

 

But Hoyle and Wickramasinghe were not satisfied. In the middle 1970s, they turned their attention to an apparent anomaly in the spectrum. It had a low, broad "knee" centered at about 2.3 wavelengths per micrometer (the slight convexity on the slope at the left side of the graph) (9). This spectral feature could be explained if the grains of dust were of a certain size, and translucent. After trying almost everything else first, in 1979, they looked at the spectrum for bacteria. Dried bacteria refract light as irregular hollow spheres, and their size range is appropriate. The match between the spectrum for dried bacteria (solid line) and the ones from the interstellar grains (dots, triangles and squares) was nearly perfect. Thinking without prejudice, Hoyle and Wickramasinghe concluded the grains probably were dried, frozen bacteria (10).

 

When [Wickramasinghe] first made this calculation... he was dumbfounded. After almost twenty years in which he had tried in vain to obtain a theoretical extinction curve closely matching the observations, using theories that permitted a considerable measure of parameter fitting, he now had a theory with no adjustable parameter, a theory which yet gave... excellent results... (11).

 

This finding was ridiculed at the time, is still ridiculed today, and is definitely not accepted by mainstream science. It has become common to wonder if Fred Hoyle has "gone off the deep end" as several other British scientists have done in their latter years. But in fact, Hoyle spent ten productive years studying the implications of this finding (12). And Chandra Wickramasinghe is still working on the evidence for life from space. While exploring the vast new scientific territory they found, they have taken some wrong turns and have changed their opinions on some questions. Certain other scientists have roundly criticised them for such "inconststencies" and for sometimes having less than complete corroboration for their findings. Criticism so bitter discourages all pioneering scientific enquiry. Perhaps their work will be honored eventually.

 

http://www.panspermia.org/astronmy.htm

 

Interstellar Dust Grains as Freeze-Dried Bacterial Cells: Hoyle and Wickramasinghe’s Fantastic Journey

 

http://www.semp.us/publications/biot_reader.php?BiotID=455

[ajb]

My brother was very interested in panspermia a little while back. He had spoken to Wickramasinghe (who is at Cardiff) on the matter a few times before. I think he was looking to write a review article.

 

What is definitely true is that complex organic chemicals needed for life can be found in space, in molecular clouds for example. Also, glycine has been found on a comet recently.

 

So, we know the raw materials are out there...

[Mokele]

What proof do any of them have that these bacteria high in the atmosphere are not terrestrial?

 

I'm sure there's a vague statement that the layers don't mix that far up, but how do we know *that*. We need to actually *check*.

 

Retrieve them, see if they grow, see if they're just common Earth bacteria.

 

IMHO, panspermia is a load of speculation, unsupported by any real evidence, guilty of ignoring fundamental problems with its claims, and of no significant benefit to our understanding of the origin of life (since, after all, it must have started *somewhere*).

[ajb]

...guilty of ignoring fundamental problems with its claims, and of no significant benefit to our understanding of the origin of life (since, after all, it must have started *somewhere*).

 

I think that the origin of life and the idea that life could spread through the cosmos should be viewed as different, but possibly related questions. Panspermia, of course does specifically refer to the idea that life originated elsewhere and the "seeded" the Earth.

 

The idea of exogenesis, that is life spreading from Earth to other planets is also a fascinating idea. Is it possible that any microbes on Mars (say) have an Earthly ancestry?

 

Also, you can find out more of the work done at Cardiff via the Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology website.

Edited October 12, 2009 by ajb

[John Cuthber]

We know that CFCs make it into the stratosphere so we know that, in the real world, such mixing does occur, albeit slowly.

[D H]

[From quoted article]

Commenting on the results, Professor Wickramasinghe said: "There is now unambiguous evidence for the presence of clumps of living cells in air samples from as high as 41 kilometres, well above the local tropopause (16 km), above which no air from lower down would normally be transported."

 

SPARC INITIATIVES : Transport and Mixing in the Lower Stratosphere and Upper Troposphere

http://www.atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca/SPARC/Initiatives/ste.html

 

Tropopause Folding and Stratosphere-Troposphere Exchange (STE)

http://www.atmos.umd.edu/~dkuhl/documents/Kuhl_Tropopause_Folding.ppt

 

HIRDLS Observations of Mixing of Tropospheric Air Into the Lower Stratosphere

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008AGUFM.A54A..05K

 

Stratosphere-troposphere exchange : Chemical sensitivity to mixing

http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=991398

[Peron]

they looked at the spectrum for bacteria. Dried bacteria refract light as irregular hollow spheres, and their size range is appropriate. The match between the spectrum for dried bacteria (solid line) and the ones from the interstellar grains (dots, triangles and squares) was nearly perfect. Thinking without prejudice, Hoyle and Wickramasinghe concluded the grains probably were dried, frozen bacteria

 

The spectrum matches that of the spectrum in interstellar space. I think thats more than enough proof for panspermia.

[Moontanman]

Doesn't UV radiation pretty much insure that all bacteria are killed almost immediately in space? Spreading life via rocks knocked off the Earth or Mars seems possible if improbable but simple bacteria cannot withstand the raw UV light of the sun. then again there is this.....

 

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/06/02/red.rain/index.html

[Baby Astronaut]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/06/02/red.rain/index.html

Wow, it'd be awesome if turns out to be a new form of life. Plus not based on carbon.

 

 

Specifically, Louis has isolated strange, thick-walled, red-tinted cell-like structures about 10 microns in size. Stranger still, dozens of his experiments suggest that the particles may lack DNA yet still reproduce plentifully, even in water superheated to nearly 600 degrees Fahrenheit . (The known upper limit for life in water is about 250 degrees Fahrenheit .)