Progress towards the vindication of panspermia |
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Authors: | NC Wickramasinghe M Wainwright JV Narlikar P Rajaratnam MJ Harris D Lloyd |
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Institution: | (1) Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology, Cardiff University, 2 North Road, Cardiff, CT10 3DY, U.K;(2) Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, S10 2TN, U.K;(3) Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Post Bag 4, Ganeshkhind, Pune, 411 007, India;(4) Antariksh Bhavan, Indian Space Research Organisation, New Bel Road, Bangalore, 560 094, India;(5) Cardiff School of Biological Sciences, Cardiff University, P.O. Box 915, Cardiff, CF10 3TL Wales, U.K |
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Abstract: | Theories of panspermia are rapidly coming into vogue, with the possibility of the transfer of viable bacterial cells from
one planetary abode to another being generally accepted as inevitable. The panspermia models of Hoyle and Wickramasinghe require
the transfer of viable bacterial cells from interstellar dust to comets and back into interplanetary and interstellar space.
In such a cycle a viable fraction of as little as 10-18 at the inception of a newly formed comet/planet system suffices for cometary panspermia to dominate over competing processes
for the origin and transfer of life. The well-attested survival attributes of microbes under extreme conditions, which have
recently been discovered, gives credence to the panspermia hypothesis. The prediction of the theory that comets bring microbes
onto the Earth at the present time is testable if aseptic collections of stratospheric air above the tropopause can be obtained.
We describe a recent collection of this kind and report microbiological analysis that shows the existence of viable cells
at 41 km, falling to Earth at the rate of a few tonnes per day over the entire globe. Some of these cells have been cultured
in the laboratory and found to include microorganisms that are not too different from related species on the Earth. This is
in fact what the Hoyle-Wickramasinghe theory predicts. The weight of evidence goes against the more conservative explanation
that organisms are being lofted to the high atmosphere from the ground.
This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date. |
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