- (CNN) -- An international team of scientists has recovered
microorganisms in the upper reaches of the atmosphere that could have originated
from outer space, a participant in the study said Friday.
-
-
- The living bacteria, plucked from an altitude of 10 miles
(16 km) or higher by a scientific balloon, could have been deposited in
terrestrial airspace by a passing comet, according to the researchers.
-
-
- The microorganisms are unlike any known on Earth, but
the astrobiologists "want to keep the details under wraps until they
are absolutely convinced that these are extraterrestrial," said study
participant Chandra Wickramasinghe, a noted scientist at Cardiff University
in Wales.
-
-
- NASA's Ames Research Center posted a cautious reaction
to the report on its Astrobiology Web site. NASA said the finding is likely
to meet considerable skepticism in the scientific community.
-
-
- "Aerobiologists might argue that 10 miles is not
too high for Earth life to reside, a possibility that Wickramasinghe appears
to accept," the statement said.
-
-
- However, NASA said, a compelling case can be made for
the transport of microorganisms through space aboard comets and meteors.
-
-
- "A recent discovery indicates that microbes can
remain dormant for millions of years -- enough time to travel from planet
to planet," NASA said.
-
-
- Disputing critics who suggest that the balloon was contaminated
on the ground, Wickramasinghe said the experiment took place with strict
controls. He does acknowledge the possibility that terrestrial bacteria
could be kicked up into the stratosphere. Living fungal spores have been
discovered at altitudes of 7 miles (11 km).
-
-
- But observations from this and a related study suggest
the presence of living bacteria far too high in the atmosphere to have
originated from the surface of the planet, according to Wickramasinghe.
-
-
- "What is present in the upper atmosphere, critics
will say it came from the ground. That is a serious possibility at 15 kilometers,
but at 40 or 85 kilometers, you can forget about it," he said Friday.
-
-
- Wickramasinghe and colleague Sir Fred Hoyle published
a report on the Web Friday about evidence that they say strengthens the
hypothesis that unusual microbes float through the upper reaches of the
atmosphere.
-
-
- Looking at spectral data from the 1999 Leonid meteorite
shower, they detected a bacterial "fingerprint" as the tiny space
rocks streaked across the sky at a height of 51 miles (83 km).
-
-
- "The bacteria heated at temperatures high enough
to radiate and shine in this (spectral) signature," Wickramasinghe
said.
-
-
- Along with Hoyle, Wickramasinghe pioneered "panspermia,"
the theory that outer space seeded Earth with its first life forms about
4 billion years ago.
-
-
- Wickramasinghe holds that primitive life could still
be arriving from space. "If we find microbes at great heights that
are not contaminants from the ground, we have to wonder where they came
from. One hundred tons of comet and meteor organic debris is deposited
in the atmosphere every day."
-
-
- Javant Narlikar of India lead the atmospheric bacteria
sample study, which the Indian Space Research Organization coordinated.
-
-
- The location of the microbe is what most impressed Wickramasinghe,
not the composition. It seems like a novel strain of a common bacteria
genus on Earth, he said.
-
-
-
- MainPage
http://www.rense.com
-
-
-
- This
Site Served by TheHostPros
|