Posted on 12/18/2002 6:27:43 AM PST by forsnax5
How far up into the sky does the biosphere extend? Do microorganisms exist at heights of 40 km and in what quantity? To answer these questions several research institutes in India collaborated on a path-breaking project to send balloon-borne sterile "cryosamplers" into the stratosphere. The programme was led by cosmologist Professor Jayant Narlikar, Director of the Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics in Pune, with scientists at the Indian Space Research Organisation and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Studies contributing their various expertise.
Large volumes of air from the stratosphere at heights ranging from 20 to 41km were collected on 21 January 2001. The programme of analysis of samples in the UK was organised by Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe of Cardiff University, co-proponent with the late Sir Fred Hoyle of the modern theory of panspermia. This theory states that the Earth was seeded in the past, and is still being seeded, with microorganisms from comets.
Last year a team of biologists at Cardiff University's School of Biosciences reported evidence of viable bacteria in air samples at 41km in such quantity that implied a world-wide settling rate of one tonne of bacterial material per day. Although living bacteria were seen they could not be grown in the laboratory. Dr Milton Wainwright of Sheffield University's Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, was asked to apply his skills to growing the organisms. Dr Wainwright isolated a fungus and two bacteria from one of the space derived samples collected at 41km. The presence of bacteria in these samples was then independently confirmed. These results are published in this month's issue of a prestigious microbiology journal FEMS Letters (Wainwright et al, 2002), published by Elsevier. The isolated organisms are very similar to known terrestrial varieties. There are however notable differences in their detailed properties, possibly pointing to a different origin. Furthermore, it should be stressed that these microorganisms are not common laboratory contaminants.
Dr Wainwright says, however, "Contamination is always a possibility in such studies but the "internal logic" of the findings points strongly to the organisms being isolated in space, at a height of 41km. Of course the results would have been more readily accepted and lauded by critics had we isolated novel organisms, or ones with NASA written on them! However, we can only report what we have found in good faith".
The new work of Wainwright et al is consistent with the ideas of Hoyle and Wickramasinghe that in fact predict the continuing input onto the Earth of "modern" organisms. In recent years and months there has been a growing body of evidence that can be interpreted as support for the theory of panspermia - e.g. the space survival attributes and general space hardiness of bacteria.
But then, the folks behind this reasearch have no predisposition for an extraterrestrial interpretation of the results, do they?
But we aren't talking about a vacuum, we're talking about the atmosphere.
Large volumes of air from the stratosphere at heights ranging from 20 to 41km were collected on 21 January 2001.
< -snip- >
Dr Wainwright isolated a fungus and two bacteria from one of the space derived samples collected at 41km. The presence of bacteria in these samples was then independently confirmed. These results are published in this month's issue of a prestigious microbiology journal FEMS Letters (Wainwright et al, 2002), published by Elsevier. The isolated organisms are very similar to known terrestrial varieties. There are however notable differences in their detailed properties, possibly pointing to a different origin. Furthermore, it should be stressed that these microorganisms are not common laboratory contaminants.
Notice how they collected air from "space?"
Makes sense to me that stratospheric germs would be different. That doesn't make them extraterrestrial.
The folks behind the research are pushing panspermia theory, and much of this article here is propaganda.
I think you're most likely right, but it's still interesting in terms of panspermia. These have to be some pretty sturdy bugs to survive at that height - the oxygen concentration at 41 km is 0.3% of what it is at sea level. Also, IIRC, the ozone layer is mostly concentrated between 15 and 30 km, so they have to be getting some pretty hefty doses of UV radiation. If you can survive at 41 km up, you're not far away from being able to survive in space itself....
Yeah, you really can't send balloons to space. ;)
Makes sense to me that stratospheric germs would be different. That doesn't make them extraterrestrial.
But it doesn't rule it out, either. If Earth *is* being constantly seeded from space, then it makes sense that the incoming stuff would be similar to what's already here.
The folks behind the research are pushing panspermia theory, and much of this article here is propaganda.
Everybody has an agenda of some sort. This particular idea has been floating around for a long time, but there's a possibility that something concrete will be discovered when we finally get a sample from a comet...
I believe that is already confirmed. I will find the link if you wish.
Where are the little bacteria corpses in the moon dust?
In this case I could say, "Nature abhors what is virtually a vacuum. Where one thinks life does not exist, it often does"
Beats me. Did they sterilize the rocks they brought back?
Yes, that's it (the lunar lander did not make it back, the capsule did).
If small comets are
as common as Louis Frank
thinks, panspermia
may get a new life
of its own. Today's tin foil
is tomorrow's text.
I don't think so. They kept them under sterile conditions. The point I'm making is that organic material falling on the earth will also fall on the moon. The only indication of any organic material of consequence on the moon involves porphyrins.
...and re-entry?
That sounds reasonable if organics are floating around freely in space. If they're restricted to comets and comet fragments, then dispersal without an atmosphere would be difficult.
I've always felt that comets were rather odd, BTW. I mean, they're described as being huge conglomerations of water ice and miscellaneous space detritus. They're as much a fixture of our solar system as planets. How could such things have been created in such numbers?
Ha! You *can* send ballons to space in a rocket.
I stand corrected... :)
What part of the moon does not have a crater on it?
How many of those craters were caused by comet impacts?
About the same proportion as those that impacted the earth.
Concur on this point. If they trap some bacteria from geosynchronous orbit or trans-lunar space, THEN they have "something to crow about".
"We're finding germs in the bowels of the planet, so it's not a surprise they've made it to the stratosphere."
Yeah! I now believe that the "biosphere" started to develop as soon as the earth warmed enough to form liquid water in the interstices of the planet--LONG before there was life on the surface.
Well, just to quibble, this article here isn't affirmation subject to confirmation in the first place. Speculation, as it stands.
Gotta link to the other one?
That I'll go along with. There is also the possibility that our solar system is unique, so we're decades away, at the least, from demonstrating widespread panspermia.
Thanks for the link, I'll check it out.
Next time some wiseacre kid of 4 asks why the sky is blue or the grass is green, fire that one back at him. Maybe he'll take up science as a career and figure it out and tell the rest of us.
Side story:
They used to publish schedules of "Echo I" visibility on newspapers; I frequently observed it passing overhead in the evening sky.
An important point that is NOT addressed in the article is the reason for suspecting that the microbes are other than terrestial in origin: the convection layer of the Earth's atmosphere doesn't extend to 40km. IOW, there aren't many other viable mechanism for transporting large volumes of microbial material from the earth's surface to these altitudes.
Really big volcanic eruptions could probably do it, as would really big meteorite impacts, but both are fairly rare events.
Beyond that, I'm hard pressed to see how the buggers get up there (unless someone can show that Brownian motion is sufficient to propel microbes to an altitude of 40km (about 125,000 feet.) Hitch-hiking on rockets and stratospheric research ballons is about the only other imaginable sources, neither of which would ever get any significant volume of microbes up there.
A different article, but the same subject. I missed the October post -- there's some interesting comments on that one. Thanks for the link...
I still have it, and it works great as a 500 - 1000 yard spotter scope.
Thanks
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