All Topics  
Panspermia

 
Panspermia

   Email Print
   Bookmark   Link






 

Panspermia



 
 
Panspermia (Gk
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
. p??/p?? (pas/pan, all) and sp??µa (sperma, seed)) is the hypothesis
Hypothesis

A hypothesis consists either of a suggested explanation for an observable phenomenon or of a reasoned proposal predicting a possible causal correlation among multiple phenomena....
 that "seeds" of life
Life

Life is a characteristic of organisms that exhibit certain biological processes such as chemical reactions or other events that results in a transformation....
 exist already all over the Universe
Universe

The universe is defined as everything that physically exists: the entirety of space and time, all forms of matter, energy and momentum, and the physical laws and physical constants that govern them....
, that life on Earth
Life on Earth

Life on Earth: A Natural History by David Attenborough is a groundbreaking television natural history series made by the BBC in association with Warner Bros....
 may have originated through these "seeds", and that they may deliver or have delivered life to other habitable bodies.

The related but distinct idea of exogenesis (Gk
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
. e?? (exo, outside) and ?e?es?? (genesis, origin)) is a more limited hypothesis that proposes life on Earth was transferred from elsewhere in the Universe but makes no prediction about how widespread it is.






Discussion
Ask a question about 'Panspermia'
Start a new discussion about 'Panspermia'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum



Encyclopedia


Panspermia (Gk
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
. p??/p?? (pas/pan, all) and sp??µa (sperma, seed)) is the hypothesis
Hypothesis

A hypothesis consists either of a suggested explanation for an observable phenomenon or of a reasoned proposal predicting a possible causal correlation among multiple phenomena....
 that "seeds" of life
Life

Life is a characteristic of organisms that exhibit certain biological processes such as chemical reactions or other events that results in a transformation....
 exist already all over the Universe
Universe

The universe is defined as everything that physically exists: the entirety of space and time, all forms of matter, energy and momentum, and the physical laws and physical constants that govern them....
, that life on Earth
Life on Earth

Life on Earth: A Natural History by David Attenborough is a groundbreaking television natural history series made by the BBC in association with Warner Bros....
 may have originated through these "seeds", and that they may deliver or have delivered life to other habitable bodies.

The related but distinct idea of exogenesis (Gk
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
. e?? (exo, outside) and ?e?es?? (genesis, origin)) is a more limited hypothesis that proposes life on Earth was transferred from elsewhere in the Universe but makes no prediction about how widespread it is. Because the term "panspermia" is more well-known, it tends to be used in reference to what should strictly speaking be called exogenesis.

Hypothesis

The first known mention of the term was in the writings of the 5th century BC Greek
Ancient Greece

The term Ancient Greece refers to the period of History of Greece lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman Republic conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth ....
 philosopher Anaxagoras
Anaxagoras

Anaxagoras was a Pre-Socratic philosophy Greek philosophy famous for introducing the cosmological concept of Nous , the ordering force....
, although the concept is not the same. The panspermia hypothesis was dormant until 1743 when it appeared posthumously in the writings of Benoît de Maillet
Benoît de Maillet

Beno?t de Maillet was a well-travelled French diplomat and natural historian. He was French consul general at Cairo, and overseer in the Levant....
, who suggested that germs from space had fallen into the oceans and grown into fish
Fish

A fish is any marine biology vertebrate animal that is typically ectothermic , covered with scale , and equipped with two sets of paired fins and several unpaired fins....
 and later amphibian
Amphibian

Amphibians , such as frogs, toads, salamanders, newts and caecilians, are cold-blooded animals that metamorphose from a juvenile, water-breathing form to an adult, air-breathing form....
s, reptile
Reptile

Reptiles, or members of the class Reptilia, are air-breathing, cold-blooded vertebrates that have skin covered in scale as opposed to hair or feathers....
s and then mammal
Mammal

Mammals are a class of vertebrate animals whose name is derived from their distinctive feature, mammary glands, with which they feed their young....
s. In the nineteenth century it was again revived in modern form by several scientists, including Jöns Jacob Berzelius (1834), Kelvin
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin

William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin , Order of Merit , Royal Victorian Order, Privy Council of the United Kingdom, Presidents of the Royal Society, Royal Society of Edinburgh, was an Ireland-born United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Mathematical physics and engineer....
 (1871), Hermann von Helmholtz
Hermann von Helmholtz

Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz was a Germany physician and physicist who made significant contributions to several widely varied areas of modern science....
 (1879) and, somewhat later, by Svante Arrhenius
Svante Arrhenius

Svante August Arrhenius was a Swedish scientist, originally a physicist, but often referred to as a chemist, and one of the founders of the science of physical chemistry....
 (1903). Panspermia can be said to be either interstellar (between star systems) or interplanetary (between planets in the same star system). Mechanisms for panspermia include radiation pressure (Arrhenius) and lithopanspermia (microorganisms in rocks) (Kelvin). Directed panspermia from space to seed Earth or sent from Earth to seed other solar systems has also been proposed.

There is as yet no compelling evidence to support or contradict it, although the majority view holds that panspermia — especially in its interstellar form — is unlikely given the challenges of survival and transport in space. One new twist to the theory by engineer Thomas Dehel (2006) proposes that plasmoids ejected from the magnetosphere may move the few spores lifted from the Earth's atmosphere with sufficient speed to cross interstellar space to other systems before the spores can be destroyed.

Sir Fred Hoyle (1915–2001) and Chandra Wickramasinghe
Chandra Wickramasinghe

Sri Lankan honours system Nalin Chandra Wickramasinghe, FIMA, Royal Astronomical Society, Royal Society of Arts is Professor of Applied Mathematics and Astronomy at Cardiff University....
 (born 1939) were important proponents of the hypothesis who further contended that lifeforms continue to enter the Earth's atmosphere, and may be responsible for epidemic outbreaks, new diseases, and the genetic novelty necessary for macroevolution
Macroevolution

Macroevolution is a scale of analysis of evolution in separated gene pools. Macroevolutionary studies focus on change that occurs at or above the level of species, in contrast with microevolution, which refers to smaller evolutionary changes within a species or population....
. This extension has also been adopted by proponents of Cosmic ancestry
Cosmic ancestry

Cosmic ancestry is a hypothesis of the origin of life on Earth, based on the panspermia views of Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe and further developed by Brig Klyce....
.

Panspermia per se does not remove the need for life to originate somewhere, but does extend the time frame and environments available. Similarly, it does not necessarily suggest that life originated only once and subsequently spread through the entire Universe, but instead that once started it may be able to spread to other environments suitable for replication. (In the strongest version of panspermia, life never originated, but always existed — this axiom would require amending the big bang
Big Bang

The Big Bang is the physical cosmology model of the initial conditions and subsequent development of the universe supported by the most comprehensive and accurate explanations from current scientific method and observation....
 theory.) The mechanisms proposed for interstellar panspermia are hypothetical and currently unproven. Interplanetary transfer of material is well documented, as evidenced by meteorites of Martian origin
Mars meteorite

A Mars meteorite is a meteorite that has landed on Earth and originated from Mars . This could have been the result of an impact of a celestial body on Mars, sending material from Mars into space....
 found on Earth. However, claims that these carry evidence of extraterrestrial lifeforms — let alone viable dormant lifeforms — have either been proven unfounded as a result of terrestrial contamination, misinterpretation, or hoaxing; or are currently hotly disputed.

Interestingly, space probe
Space probe

A robotic spacecraft is a spacecraft with no humans on board, that is usually under telerobotic control. A robotic spacecraft designed to make scientific research measurements is often called a space probe....
s may also be a viable transport mechanism for interplanetary cross-pollination in our solar system (or even beyond). However, space agencies have implemented strict abiotic procedures to avoid planetary contamination.

Evidence

Until a large portion of the galaxy is surveyed for signs of life or contact is made with hypothetical extraterrestrial civilizations, the panspermia hypothesis in its fullest meaning will remain difficult to test. There is, however, circumstantial evidence
Circumstantial evidence

Circumstantial evidence is a collection of facts that, when considered together, can be used to inference a conclusion about something unknown. Circumstantial evidence is usually a theory, supported by a significant quantity of corroborating evidence....
 for exogenesis:

Narrow time window for geogenesis

Stromatolites
The Precambrian
Precambrian

The Precambrian is an informal name for the supereon comprising the eon of the geologic timescale that came before the current Phanerozoic eon....
 fossil
Fossil

Fossils are the preserved remains or trace fossil of animals, plants, and other organisms from the remote past. The totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in fossiliferous Rock formations and sedimentary rock layers is known as the fossil record....
 record indicates that life appeared soon after the Earth was formed. This would imply that life appears within several hundred million years when conditions are favourable.

  • Generally accepted scientific estimates of the age of the Earth
    Age of the Earth

    Modern Geology and geophysicists consider the age of the Earth to be around 1 E17 s This age has been determined by Radiometric dating of meteorite material and is consistent with the ages of the oldest-known terrestrial and Earth's moon Moon rock....
     place its formation (along with the rest of the Solar system
    Solar System

    The Solar System consists of the Sun and those Astronomical object bound to it by gravity: the eight planets and five dwarf planets, their 173 known Natural satellite, and billions of Small Solar System body....
    ) at about 4.55 Ga.
  • The oldest known sedimentary rock
    Sedimentary rock

    Sedimentary rock is one of the three main Rock types . Sedimentary rock is formed by deposition and consolidation of mineral and organic material and from precipitation of minerals from solution....
    s are somewhat altered Hadean
    Hadean

    The Hadean is the Eon before the Archean. It started at Earth formation about 4.6 billion years ago , and ended roughly 3.8 billion years ago, though the latter date varies according to different sources....
     formations from the southern tip of Akilia island
    Akilia island

    Akilia Island is an island in southwestern Greenland, about 22 kilometers south of Nuuk , at . Akilia is the location of a rock formation that has been proposed to contain the oldest known sedimentary rocks on Earth,...
    , West Greenland
    Greenland

    Greenland is a member country of the Kingdom of Denmark located between the Arctic Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago....
    . These rocks have been dated as no younger than 3.85 Ga. The Greenland sediments include banded iron beds, thought to be the result of oxygen released by photosynthetic organisms combining with dissolved iron to form insoluble iron oxides. Carbon deposits in the rock show low levels of carbon-13
    Carbon-13

    Carbon-13 is a natural, Stable isotope isotope of carbon and one of the environmental isotopes. It makes up about 1.1% of all natural carbon on Earth....
    . Kerogen
    Kerogen

    Kerogen is a mixture of organic chemistry chemical compounds that make up a portion of the organic matter in sedimentary rocks. It is insoluble in normal organic chemistry solvents because of the huge molecular mass of its component compounds....
     deposits (derived from organic matter) are isotopically
    Stable isotope

    Stable isotopes are chemical Isotope that are not radioactive . By this definition, there are 256 known stable isotopes of the 80 elements which have one or more stable isotopes....
     light (i.e. more negative d13C values) which is indicative of photosynthesis
    Photosynthesis

    File:Seawifs global biosphere.jpgPhotosynthesis is a metabolic pathway that converts carbon dioxide into organic compounds, especially sugars, using the energy from sunlight....
    . However, this interpretation is under doubt as the Akilia rocks have undergone high-temperature metamorphosis
    Metamorphic rock

    Metamorphic rock is the result of the transformation of an existing rock type, the protolith, in a process called metamorphism, which means "change in form"....
     which is known to be fractionating itself. There is also a lack of corroborating sulphur isotope
    Sulfur

    Sulfur or sulphur is the chemical element that has the atomic number 16. It is denoted with the symbol S. It is an abundant Valence non-metal....
     fractionation. Both the sedimentary origin and the carbon content of the rocks have been questioned.
  • Fossilized stromatolite
    Stromatolite

    Stromatolites are layered accretionary structures formed in shallow water by the trapping, binding and cementation of sedimentary grains by biofilms of microorganisms, especially cyanobacteria ....
    s or bacterial aggregates, the oldest of which are dated at 3.5 billion years old, suggest that photosynthesis might be exogenic. The bacteria that form stromatolites, cyanobacteria
    Cyanobacteria

    Cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae, blue-green bacteria or Cyanophyta, is a phylum of bacteria that obtain their energy through photosynthesis....
    , are photosynthetic. Most models of the origin of life have the earliest organisms obtaining energy from reduced chemicals, with the more complex mechanisms of photosynthesis evolving later.
  • During the Late Heavy Bombardment
    Late Heavy Bombardment

    The Late Heavy Bombardment is a period of time approximately 3,800 to 4,100 million years ago during which a large number of impact craters are believed to have formed on the Moon, and by inference on Earth, Mercury , Venus, and Mars as well....
     of the Earth's Moon
    Moon

    The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite and the List of natural satellites by diameter satellite in the Solar System. The average centre-to-centre distance from the Earth to the Moon is km, about thirty times the diameter of the Earth....
     about 3.9 Ga (as evidenced by Apollo
    Project Apollo

    The Apollo program was a human spaceflight program undertaken by NASA during the years 1961?1975 with the goal of conducting manned moon landing missions....
     lunar samples) impact intensities may have been up to 100x those immediately before or after. From analysis of lunar melts and observations of similar cratering on Mars' highlands
    MARS

    In cryptography, MARS is a block cipher that was IBM's submission to the Advanced Encryption Standard process. MARS was selected as an AES finalist in August 1999, after the AES2 conference in March 1999, where it was voted as the fifth and last finalist algorithm....
    , Kring and Cohen suggest that the LHB was caused by asteroid
    Asteroid

    Asteroids, sometimes called minor planets or planetoids, are small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun, smaller than planets but larger than meteoroids....
     impacts that affected the entire inner solar system
    Solar System

    The Solar System consists of the Sun and those Astronomical object bound to it by gravity: the eight planets and five dwarf planets, their 173 known Natural satellite, and billions of Small Solar System body....
    . This is likely to have effectively sterilised Earth's entire planetary surface, including submarine hydrothermal systems
    Hydrothermal vent

    A hydrothermal vent is a fissure vent in a planet's surface from which Geothermal heated water issues. Hydrothermal vents are commonly found near volcano active places, areas where tectonic plates are moving apart, ocean basins, and hotspot ....
     that would be otherwise protected.
  • The best estimate of the origin of the Universe, from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe
    Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe

    The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe ? also known as the Microwave Anisotropy Probe , and Explorer 80 ? measures differences in the cosmic microwave background radiation of the Big Bang's remnant radiant heat across the full sky....
    , is 13700 million years ago (13.7 Ga). However, at least one subsequent cycle of star birth/death is required for nucleosynthesis
    Stellar nucleosynthesis

    Stellar nucleosynthesis is the collective term for the atomic nucleus reactions taking place in stars to build the nuclei of the Chemical element heavier than hydrogen....
     of the C
    Carbon

    Carbon is a chemical element with chemical symbol C and atomic number 6. As a member of group 14 on the periodic table, it is nonmetallic and tetravalence?making four electrons available to form covalent bond chemical bonds....
    , N
    Nitrogen

    Nitrogen is a chemical element that has the symbol N and atomic number 7 and atomic mass 14.00674?. Elemental nitrogen is a colorless, odorless, tasteless and mostly inert diatomic gas at standard conditions, constituting 78% by volume of Earth's atmosphere....
     and O
    Oxygen

    Oxygen no O2 produced; 2) O2 produced, but absorbed in oceans & seabed rock; 3) O2 starts to gas out of the oceans, but is absorbed by land surfaces and formation of ozone layer; 4-5) O2 sinks filled and the gas accumulates]]...
     essential to life, and this process may have taken up to several Ga to produce sufficient quantities. This puts the earliest possible emergence of life in the Universe at ~12.7 Ga, although there is large uncertainty in the length of the necessary time period.


If life originated on Earth it did so in a window of at most 1 Ga (4.55 Ga to 3.5 Ga), most plausibly 400 Ma (3.9 Ga to 3.5 Ga), and possibly <100 Ma (3.9 Ga to 3.85 Ga) if the Greenland (3.85 Ga) isotope signal is correct. If life originated elsewhere, the window expands to ~9 Ga. That full length of time might not be available on a single planet, but the Earth has provided a life-friendly environment for at least 3.5 Ga.

Extremophiles

Evidence has accumulated that some bacteria and archaea
Archaea

The Archaea are a group of single-celled microorganisms. A single individual or species from this domain is called an archaeon . Archaea, like bacteria, are prokaryotic....
 are more resistant to extreme conditions than previously recognized, and may be able to survive for very long periods of time even in deep space. These extremophile
Extremophile

An extremophile is an organism that thrives in and may even require physically or geochemically extreme environment that are detrimental to the majority of life on Earth....
s could possibly travel in a dormant state between environments suitable for ongoing life such as planetary surfaces.
  • Bacteria and more complex organisms have been found in more extreme environments than thought possible, such as black smoker
    Black smoker

    A black smoker or sea vent, is a type of hydrothermal vent found on the ocean floor. They are formed in fields hundreds of meters wide when superheating water from below Earth's Crust comes through the ocean floor....
    s or oceanic volcanic vents. Some extremophile bacteria have been found living at temperatures above 100 °C
    Celsius

    Celsius is a temperature scale that is named after the Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius , who developed a similar temperature scale two years before his death....
    ; A study revealed that a fraction of bacteria survive heating pulses up to 250 degrees C in vacuum, while similar heating at normal atmospheric pressure leads to the total sterilization of samples. Other bacteria can thrive in strongly caustic environment
    Environment (biophysical)

    The biophysical environment is the symbiosis between the physics environment and the biological life forms within the environment, and include all variables that comprise the Earth's biosphere....
    s, and others at extreme pressures 11 km under the ocean.
  • Semi-dormant bacteria found in ice core
    Ice core

    An ice core is a core sample from the accumulation of snow and ice over many years that have re-crystallized and have trapped air bubbles from previous time periods....
    s over a mile beneath the Antarctic lends credibility to the idea that the components of life might survive on the surface of icy comets.
  • There are bacteria that do not rely on photosynthesis for energy. In particular, endolith
    Endolith

    An endolith is an organism that lives inside Rock , coral, animal shells, or in the Porositys between mineral grains of a rock. Many are extremophiles; living in places previously thought inhospitable to life....
    ic bacteria using chemosynthesis
    Chemosynthesis

    Chemosynthesis is the biological conversion of one or more carbon molecules and nutrients into organic matter using the oxidation of inorganic molecules or methane as a source of energy, rather than sunlight, as in photosynthesis....
     have been found inside rocks and in subterranean lakes.
  • Deinococcus radiodurans
    Deinococcus radiodurans

    Deinococcus radiodurans is an extremophile bacterium, one of the most radioresistant organisms known. It can survive cold, dehydration, vacuum, and acid, and is therefore known as a polyextremophile and has been listed as the world's toughest bacterium in Guinness World Records....
     is a radioresistant bacterium that can survive high radiation levels.
  • Tardigrade
    Tardigrade

    Tardigrades form the phylum Tardigrada, part of the superphylum Ecdysozoa. They are microscopic, water-dwelling, segmented animals with eight legs....
    s can survive the vacuum of space.
  • Dormant bacteria have been isolated from insects in amber 10s Ma
    Annum

    Annum is one form of the Latin noun meaning year, not a form normally used for derivatives in modern languages: the accusative case Grammatical number of the second declension grammatical gender noun annus , anni ....
     old.
  • Recent experiments suggest that if bacteria were somehow sheltered from the radiation of space, perhaps inside a thick meteoroid, they could survive dormant for millions of years.
  • Duplicating the harsh conditions of cold interstellar space in their laboratory, NASA scientists have created primitive cells that mimic the membranous structures found in all living things. These chemical compounds may have played a part in the origin of life.
  • On April 20, 1967, the unmanned lunar lander Surveyor 3 landed near Oceanus Procellarum on the surface of the moon. One of the things aboard was a television camera. Two-and-a-half years later, on November 20, 1969, Apollo 12 astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan L. Bean recovered the camera. When NASA scientists examined it back on Earth they were surprised to find specimens of Streptococcus mitis
    Streptococcus mitis

    Streptococcus mitis is a mesophilic alpha-haemolytic species of Streptococcus that inhabits the human mouth. It can cause endocarditis. It has been widely reported that this organism survived for over two years on the Surveyor 3 probe on the moon....
     that were still alive. Because of the precautions the astronauts had taken, NASA could be sure that the germs were inside the camera when it was retrieved, so they must have been there before the Surveyor 3 was launched. These bacteria had survived for 31 months in the vacuum of the moon's atmosphere.


Spores


Spores are another potential vector for transporting life through inhospitable and inimical environments, such as the depths of interstellar space. Spores are produced as part of the normal life cycle of many plant
Plant

Plants are Life organisms belonging to the Kingdom Plantae. They include familiar organisms such as trees, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae....
s, algae
Algae

Algae are a large and diverse group of simple, typically autotrophic organisms, ranging from unicellular to multicellular forms. The largest and most complex marine forms are called seaweeds....
, fungi
Fungus

A fungus is a Eukaryote organism that is a member of the Kingdom Fungi . The fungi are a monophyletic group, also called the Eumycota , that is phylogeny distinct from the morphologically similar slime molds and water molds ....
 and some protozoans, and some bacteria produce endospores or cysts
Microbial cyst

A microbial cyst is a resting or dormant stage of a microorganism, usually a bacterium or a protist, that helps the organism to tide over unfavorable environmental conditions....
 during times of stress. These structures may be highly resilient while metabolically inactive, and some can function when favorable conditions are restored after exposure to radiation, temperature extremes, desiccation, or other conditions fatal to the parent organism.

Wider range of potential habitats for life

Another line of evidence comes from research that shows there are many more potential habitats for life than Earth-like planets.
  • The presence of past liquid water on Mars, suggested by river-like formations on the red planet, was confirmed by the Mars Exploration Rover
    Mars Exploration Rover

    NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Mission is an ongoing robotic space mission mission of exploring Mars , that began in 2003 with the sending of two rover s ? Spirit rover and Opportunity rover ? to explore the Martian surface and geology....
     missions. In December 2006, Michael C. Malin
    Michael C. Malin

    Michael C. Malin is an American astronomer, space-scientist, and CEO of Malin Space Science Systems. His cameras have been important scientific instruments in the Exploration of Mars....
     of Malin Space Science Systems
    Malin Space Science Systems

    Malin Space Science Systems is a San Diego, California company that designs, develops, and operates instruments to fly on unmanned spacecraft. MSSS is headed by chief scientist and CEO Michael C....
     published a paper in the journal Science
    Science (journal)

    Science is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is considered one of the world's most prestigious scientific journals....
     which argued that his camera (the Mars Observer Camera) had found evidence suggesting water was occasionally flowing on the surface of Mars within the last five years.
  • Water oceans might exist on Europa
    Europa (moon)

    'Europa' is the Moons_of_Jupiter#Table Natural satellite of the planet Jupiter. Europa was discovered in 1610 by Galileo Galilei , and named after a mythical Phoenician noblewoman, Europa , who was courted by Zeus and became the queen of Crete....
    , Enceladus
    Enceladus (moon)

    'Enceladus' , is the sixth-largest Moons of Saturn of Saturn . It was discovered in 1789 by William Herschel. Until the two Voyager program spacecraft passed near it in the early 1980s, very little was known about this small moon besides the identification of water ice on its surface....
    , Triton
    Triton (moon)

    'Triton' is the largest natural satellite of the planet Neptune, discovered on October 10, 1846 by William Lassell. It is the only large moon in the Solar System with a Retrograde and direct motion, which is an orbit in the opposite direction to its planet's rotation....
     and perhaps other moons in the Solar system. Even moons that are now frozen ice balls might earlier have been melted internally by heat from radioactive rocky cores. Bodies like this may be extremely common throughout the Universe. Lake Vostok
    Lake Vostok

    Lake Vostok is the largest of more than 140 subglacial lakes found under the surface of Antarctica. It is located beneath Russia's Vostok, Antarctica, 4,000 meters under the surface of the central Antarctic ice sheet....
     in Antarctica
    Antarctica

    Antarctica is Earth's southernmost continent, overlying the South Pole. It is situated in the Antarctica of the southern hemisphere, almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle, and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean....
    , which has been sealed for millions of years, and which may contain unusual life or be sterile, is a possible testing ground for ways to explore these moons.
  • Bacteria have been discovered living within warm rock deep in the Earth's crust.


Evidence of extraterrestrial life

Although clearly speculative, the majority view in the scientific community seems to be an acceptance that the existence of life elsewhere in the Universe is highly probable due to the sheer number of potential sites where life could take hold. Today's estimates of values for the Drake Equation
Drake equation

The Drake equation is a famous result in the speculative fields of exobiology and the SETI .This equation was devised by Frank Drake in 1960, in an attempt to estimate the number of extraterrestrial life civilizations in our galaxy with which we might come in contact....
 suggest the probability of intelligent life in a single galaxy like our own Milky Way
Milky Way

The Milky Way, sometimes called simply the Galaxy, is the galaxy in which the Solar System is located. It is a barred spiral galaxy that is part of the Local Group of galaxies....
 may be much smaller than once was thought while the sheer numbers of galaxies in our Universe make it seem inevitable somewhere nevertheless. Space travel over such vast distances would take an incredibly long time to the outside observer, with vast amounts of energy required. Nevertheless small groups of researchers like the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI
SETI

Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence is the collective name for a number of activities to detect intelligent extraterrestrial life. The general approach of SETI projects is to survey the sky to detect the existence of interstellar communication from a civilization on a distant planet ? an approach widely endorsed by the scientific...
) continue to monitor the skies for transmissions from within our own galaxy at least.

Moreover, the expanded Drake equation of astrobiological proponents like the Rare Earth hypothesis
Rare Earth hypothesis

In planetary astronomy and astrobiology, the Rare Earth hypothesis argues that the origin of life of complex multicellular life on Earth required an improbable combination of astrophysics and geology events and circumstances....
ts reduces this probability further still. They argue that the conditions required for the evolution of complex multicellular life here on Earth – and therefore by extension intelligent life – might be exceedingly rare in the universe whilst simultaneously conceding that simple single-celled microorganisms may well be abundant.

Spaceborne organic molecules
  • A 2008 analysis of 12C/13C isotopic ratios of organic compounds found in the Murchison meteorite
    Murchison meteorite

    The Murchison meteorite is named after Murchison, Victoria, in Australia. It is one of the most studied meteorites due to its large mass , the fact that it was an observed Meteorite fall, and it belongs to a group of meteorites rich in organic compounds....
     indicates a non-terrestrial origin for these molecules rather than terrestrial contamination. Biologically relevant molecules so identified included uracil
    Uracil

    Uracil is a common and naturally occurring pyrimidine derivative. Originally discovered in 1900, it was isolated by hydrolysis of yeast nuclein that was found in bovine thymus and spleen, herring, sperm, and wheat germ....
    , an RNA nucleobase
    Nucleobase

    Nucleobases are the parts of DNA and RNA that may be involved in pairing . The main ones are cytosine, guanine, adenine , thymine and uracil , abbreviated as C, G, A, T, and U, respectively....
    , and xanthine
    Xanthine

    Xanthine , , is a purine base found in most body tissues and fluids and in other organisms. A number of mild stimulants are derived from xanthine, including caffeine and theobromine....
    .


Still under investigation/undetermined
  • The Red Rain of Kerala
    Red rain in Kerala

    From July 25 to September 23, 2001, red rain sporadically fell on the southern Indian state of Kerala. Heavy downpours occurred in which the rain was coloured red, staining clothes with an appearance similar to that of blood....
    . In 2003, Satyanarayana et al. proposed that the rain was coloured red by a dust cloud from the Persian Gulf
    Middle East

    File:GreaterMiddleEast1.pngThe Middle East is a region that spans southwestern Asia, western Asia, and northeastern Africa. It has no clear boundaries, often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East....
    . Their paper was then published in Aerosol Science and Technology. Godfrey Louis
    Godfrey Louis

    Godfrey Louis is a solid-state physicist, who, while at Mahatma Gandhi University in Kerala, achieved notoriety for his controversial hypotheses about the red rain in Kerala....
      and Santhosh Kumar analyzed the dust and reported finding spores hypothesised to be of extraterrestrial origin. In April 2006, Louis and Kumar published their findings in Astrophysics and Space Science
    Astrophysics and Space Science

    Astrophysics and Space Science is a peer reviewed academic journal in the field of astrophysics and space science.External links...
    . They claimed that the red particles "reproduce plentifully", and that they did so even in "water superheated to nearly 300 °C".


Alh84001 Structures
* A meteorite
Meteorite

A meteorite is a natural object originating in outer space that survives an impact with the Earth's surface. While in space it is called a meteoroid....
 originating from Mars known as ALH84001
ALH84001

Allan Hills 84001 is a meteorite found in Allan Hills, Antarctica on December 27, 1984 by a team of US meteorite hunters from the ANSMET project....
 was shown in 1996 to contain microscopic
Microscopic

Microscopic is a term used to describe objects smaller than those that can easily be seen by the naked eye and which require a lens or microscope to see them clearly....
 structures resembling small terrestrial nanobacteria. When the discovery was announced, many immediately conjectured that the fossils were the first true evidence of extraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life

Extraterrestrial life is defined as life which does not originate from Earth. It is the subject of astrobiology and its existence remains hypothetical, because there is no credible evidence of extraterrestrial life which has been generally accepted by the mainstream scientific community....
 — making headlines around the world, and even prompting U.S. President
President of the United States

The President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States and is the highest political official in the United States by influence and recognition....
 Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton served as the List of Presidents of the United States President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He was the fifteenth Democrat elected to that office....
 to make a formal televised announcement to mark the event. As of 2003 however, most experts agree that these are not indicative of life, but may instead be formed abiotically from organic molecules. It has not yet conclusively been shown how they formed and recent advances in nanobe
Nanobe

Nanobes are tiny filamental structures first found in some Rock and sediments. Some Hypothesis that they are the smallest form of life, 1/10th the size of the smallest known Bacterium....
 research has made the find interesting again.

  • An Indian and British team of researchers led by Chandra Wickramasinghe reported evidence at the 46th annual meeting of the International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE) in San Diego, California on April 29, 2001 that air samples gathered from the stratosphere by the Indian Space Research Organization contained clumps of living cells. Wickramasinghe calls this "unambiguous evidence for the presence of clumps of living cells in air samples from as high as 41 kilometers, well above the local tropopause, above which no air from lower down would normally be transported". A reaction report at NASA Ames
    NASA Ames Research Center

    NASA Ames Research Center is a NASA facility located at Moffett Federal Airfield, which covers at the borders of the cities of Mountain View, California and Sunnyvale, California in California....
     indicated skepticism towards the premise that Earth life cannot travel to and reside at such altitudes, but noted that some microbes can remain dormant for millions of years, possibly long enough for an interplanetary voyage. Max Bernstein, a space scientist associated with SETI
    SETI

    Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence is the collective name for a number of activities to detect intelligent extraterrestrial life. The general approach of SETI projects is to survey the sky to detect the existence of interstellar communication from a civilization on a distant planet ? an approach widely endorsed by the scientific...
     and Ames, argues the results should be interpreted with caution, noting that "it would strain one's credulity less to believe that terrestrial organisms had somehow been transported upwards than to assume that extraterrestrial organisms are falling inward".


  • On May, 2001, two researchers from the University of Naples
    University of Naples Federico II

    The University of Naples Federico II is a university located in Naples, Italy. It was founded in 1224 and is organized into 13 departments. It is the world's oldest state university and one of the oldest academic institutions in continuous operation....
     claimed to have found live extraterrestrial bacteria inside a meteorite. Geologist Bruno D'Argenio and molecular biologist Giuseppe Geraci claim the bacteria were wedged inside the crystal structure of minerals, but were resurrected when a sample of the rock was placed in a culture medium. They believe that the bacteria were not terrestrial because they survived when the sample was sterilized at very high temperature and washed with alcohol. They also claim that the bacteria's DNA is unlike any on Earth. They presented a report on May 11, 2001, concluding that this is the first evidence of extraterrestrial life, documented in its genetic and morphological properties. Some of the bacteria they discovered were found inside meteorites that have been estimated to be over 4.5 billion years old, and were determined to be related to modern day Bacillus subtilis
    Bacillus subtilis

    Bacillus subtilis, known as the hay bacillus or grass bacillus, is a Gram-positive, catalase-positive bacterium commonly found in soil....
     and Bacillus pumilus bacteria on Earth but appears to be a different strain.


  • Narlikar et al. took air samples at 41 km over Hyderabad, India — above the tropopause
    Tropopause

    The tropopause is the boundary in the Earth's atmosphere between the troposphere and the stratosphere. Going upward from the surface, it is the point where air ceases to cool with height, and becomes almost completely dry....
     where mixing from the lower atmosphere is unexpected — from which rod and coccoid bacteria were isolated. Two bacterial and one fungal species were later independently isolated from these filters which were identified as Bacillus simplex, Staphylococcus pasteuri and Engyodontium album respectively. The experimental procedure suggested that these were not the result of laboratory contamination, although similar isolation experiments at separate laboratories were unsuccessful. That these are common terrestrial organisms is not necessarily contraindicative of panspermia, since a prediction of the hypothesis is that life throughout the Universe is derived from the same ancestral stock. Assuming they are not contaminants, did the micro-organisms come from the Earth or space? That there were no volcanic eruptions — the only known way for terrestrial particles to mix up beyond the tropopause — prior to sampling suggests against a terrestrial source. In either case, Wainright (2003) points out that some part of the panspermia hypothesis is validated: either terrestrial micro-organisms are indeed derived from space, or they are capable of contaminating our local space in a viable form. Measuring the isotope ratios of carbon and nitrogen in the micro-organisms from the stratosphere could reveal whether they come from Earth or space.


  • Of three biological experiments
    Viking biological experiments

    The two Viking program each carried four types of biological experiments to the surface of Mars in the late 1970s. These were the first Mars landers to carry out experiments to look for biosignatures of life on Mars....
     on the Mars lander Viking
    Viking program

    NASA's Viking program consisted of a pair of space probes sent to Mars , Viking 1 and Viking 2. Each vehicle was composed of two main parts, an orbiter designed to photograph the surface of Mars from orbit, and a lander designed to study the planet from the surface....
    , two gave results that were initially indicative of life. However, the similar results from heated controls, how the release of indicative gas tapered off, and the lack of organic molecules in soil samples all suggest that the results were the result of an abiotic chemical reaction rather than biological metabolism. Later experiments showed that terrestrial clay
    Clay

    Clay is a naturally occurring material composed primarily of fine-grained minerals, which show plasticity through a variable range of water content, and which can be hardened when dried and/or fired....
    s could reproduce the results of the two positive Viking experiments. Despite this, some of the Viking experiments' designers remain convinced that they are diagnostic for life.


Widely discounted

  • A NASA research group found a small number of Streptococcus mitis
    Streptococcus mitis

    Streptococcus mitis is a mesophilic alpha-haemolytic species of Streptococcus that inhabits the human mouth. It can cause endocarditis. It has been widely reported that this organism survived for over two years on the Surveyor 3 probe on the moon....
     bacteria living inside the camera of the Surveyor 3
    Surveyor 3

    Surveyor 3 was the third lander of the Surveyor program that explored the Moon. Launched on April 17, 1967, Surveyor 3 landed April 20, 1967 at the Mare Cognitum portion of the Oceanus Procellarum....
     spacecraft when it was brought back to Earth by Apollo 12
    Apollo 12

    Apollo 12 was the sixth manned mission in the Apollo program and the second to land on the Moon....
    . They believed that the bacteria survived since the time of the craft's launch to the moon. However, these reports are no longer tenable: see Reports of Streptococcus mitis on the moon
    Reports of Streptococcus mitis on the moon

    As part of the Apollo 12 mission, the camera from the Surveyor 3 probe was brought back to Earth. On analysing the camera it was found that the common bacterium Streptococcus_mitis was alive on the camera....
    .


Falsified
  • In 1962, Claus et al. announced the discovery of 'organised elements' embedded in the Orgueil meteorite. These elements were subsequently shown to be either pollen
    Pollen

    Pollen is a fine to coarse powder consisting of Gametophyte , which produce the male gametes of spermatophyta. A hard coat covering the pollen grain protects the sperm cells during the process of their movement between the stamens of the flower to the pistil of the next flower....
    s (including that of ragwort
    Senecio

    Senecio is a genus of the daisy family that includes ragworts and groundsels. The flower heads are normally rayed, completely yellow, and the heads are borne in branched clusters....
    ) and fungal
    Fungus

    A fungus is a Eukaryote organism that is a member of the Kingdom Fungi . The fungi are a monophyletic group, also called the Eumycota , that is phylogeny distinct from the morphologically similar slime molds and water molds ....
     spore
    Spore

    In biology, a spore is a reproduction structure that is adapted for biological dispersal and surviving for extended periods of time in unfavorable conditions....
    s that had contaminated the sample, or crystals of the mineral olivine
    Olivine

    The mineral olivine is a magnesium iron Silicate minerals with the formula 2siliconoxygen4. It is one of the most common minerals on Earth, and has also been identified in meteorites and on the Moon, Mars, and comet Wild 2....
    .


  • In 2002, the discovery of glycine
    Glycine

    Glycine is the organic compound with the chemical formula NH2CH2COOH. It is the smallest of the 20 amino acids commonly found in proteins, coded by codons GGU, GGC, GGA and GGG....
     (the simplest amino acid
    Amino acid

    In chemistry, an amino acid is a molecule containing both amine and carboxyl functional groups. These molecules are particularly important in biochemistry, where this term refers to alpha-amino acids with the general formula H2NCHRCOOH, where R is an organic substituent....
    ) in interstellar cloud
    Cosmic dust

    Cosmic dust is a type of dust composed of particles in space which are a few molecules to 0.1 mm in size. Cosmic dust can be further distinguished by its astronomical location; for example: intergalactic dust, interstellar dust , interplanetary dust and circumplanetary dust ....
    s was reported. Subsequent investigation has refuted these claims.


Hoaxes
  • A separate fragment of the Orgueil meteorite (kept in a sealed glass jar since its discovery) was found in 1965 to have a seed capsule embedded in it, whilst the original glassy layer on the outside remained undisturbed. Despite great initial excitement, the seed was found to be that of a European Juncaceae
    Juncaceae

    The Juncaceae, the rush family, is a rather small monocotyledon flowering plant family. There are 8 genus and about 400 species. Many of these slow-growing plants superficially resemble Poaceae, though are herbs or Shrub, growing on infertile soils....
     or Rush plant that had been glued into the fragment and camouflaged using coal dust
    Coal dust

    Coal dust is a fine Powder form of coal, which is created by the crushing, grinding, or pulverizing of coal. Because of the brittle nature of coal, coal dust can be created during mining, transportation, or by mechanically handling coal....
    . The outer 'fusion layer' was in fact glue. Whilst the perpetrator of this hoax is unknown, it is thought he sought to influence the 19th century debate on spontaneous generation
    Spontaneous generation

    Spontaneous generation or Equivocal generation is an obsolete theory regarding the origin of life from inanimate matter, which held that this process was a commonplace and everyday occurrence, as distinguished from Univocal generation, or reproduction from parent....
     — rather than panspermia — by demonstrating the transformation of inorganic to biological matter.


Objections to panspermia and exogenesis

  • Life as we know it requires heavy elements carbon
    Carbon

    Carbon is a chemical element with chemical symbol C and atomic number 6. As a member of group 14 on the periodic table, it is nonmetallic and tetravalence?making four electrons available to form covalent bond chemical bonds....
    , nitrogen
    Nitrogen

    Nitrogen is a chemical element that has the symbol N and atomic number 7 and atomic mass 14.00674?. Elemental nitrogen is a colorless, odorless, tasteless and mostly inert diatomic gas at standard conditions, constituting 78% by volume of Earth's atmosphere....
     and oxygen
    Oxygen

    Oxygen no O2 produced; 2) O2 produced, but absorbed in oceans & seabed rock; 3) O2 starts to gas out of the oceans, but is absorbed by land surfaces and formation of ozone layer; 4-5) O2 sinks filled and the gas accumulates]]...
     (C, N and O, respectively) to exist at sufficient densities and temperatures for the chemical reactions between them to occur. These conditions are not widespread in the Universe, so this limits the distribution of life as an ongoing process. First, the elements C, N and O are only created after at least one cycle of star birth/death: this is a limit to the earliest time life could have arisen. Second, densities of elements sufficient for the formation of more complex molecules necessary to life (such as amino acids) only occur in molecular dust clouds (109–1012 particles/m³), and (following their collapse) in solar systems. Third, temperatures must be lower than those in stars (elements are stripped of electrons: a plasma
    Plasma (physics)

    In physics and chemistry, plasma is a partially ionized gas, in which a certain proportion of electrons are free rather than being bound to an atom or molecule....
     state) but higher than in interstellar space
    Interstellar space

    Interstellar space may mean:* In astronomy: all the space within a galaxy not occupied by star or their planetary systems. The interstellar medium resides ? by definition ? in interstellar space....
     (reaction rates are too low). This restricts ongoing life to planetary environments where heavy elements are present at high densities, so long as temperatures are sufficient for plausible reaction rates. Note this does not restrict dormant forms of life to these environments, so this argument only contradicts the widest interpretation of panspermia — that life is ongoing and is spread across many different environments throughout the Universe — and presupposes that any life needs those elements, which the proponents of alternative biochemistries
    Alternative biochemistry

    Alternative biochemistry is the speculative biochemistry of alien life forms that differ radically from those known on Earth. It includes biochemistries that use elements other than carbon to construct primary cellular structures and/or use solvents besides water....
     do not consider certain.


  • Space is a damaging environment for life, as it would be exposed to radiation
    Radiation

    In physics, radiation describes any process in which energy emitted by one body travels through a medium or through space, ultimately to be absorbed by another body....
    , cosmic ray
    Cosmic ray

    Cosmic rays are energetic particles originating from space that impinge on Earth's atmosphere. Almost 90% of all the incoming cosmic ray particles are protons, about 9% are helium nuclei and about 1% are electrons ....
    s and stellar wind
    Stellar wind

    A stellar wind is a flow of neutral or charged gas ejected from the celestial body atmosphere of a star. It is distinguished from the bipolar outflows characteristic of young stars by being less collimated, although stellar winds are not generally spherically symmetric....
    s. Studies of bacteria frozen in Antarctic glacier
    Glacier

    A glacier is a large, slow-moving mass of ice, formed from compacted layers of snow, that slowly deforms and flows in response to gravity and high pressure....
    s have shown that DNA has a half-life
    Half-life

    The half-life of a quantity whose value decreases with time is the interval required for the quantity to decay to half of its initial value. The concept originated in describing how long it takes atoms to undergo radioactive decay but also applies in a wide variety of other situations....
     of 1.1 million years under such conditions, suggesting that while life may have potentially moved around within the Solar System it is unlikely that it could have arrived from an interstellar source. Environments may exist within meteors or comet
    Comet

    A comet is a Small Solar System body that orbits the Sun and, when close enough to the Sun, exhibits a visible coma or a tail?both primarily from the effects of solar radiation upon the Comet nucleus....
    s that are somewhat shielded from these hazards.


  • Bacteria would not survive the immense heat and forces of an impact on Earth — no conclusions (whether positive or negative) have yet been reached on this point. However most of the heat generated when a meteor
    METEOR

    METEOR is a Metrics for the evaluation of machine translation output. The metric is based on the harmonic mean of unigram precision and recall, with recall weighted higher than precision....
     enters the Earth's atmosphere is carried away by ablation
    Ablation

    Ablation is defined as the removal of material from the surface of an object by vaporization, chipping, or other erosion processes. The term occurs in space physics associated with atmospheric reentry, in glaciology, medicine and passive fire protection....
     and the interiors of freshly landed meteorites are rarely heated much and are often cold. For example, a sample of hundreds of nematode
    Nematode

    The "roundworms" or "nematodes" are the most diverse phylum of body cavity, and one of the most diverse of all animals. Nematode species are very difficult to distinguish; over 80,000 have been described, of which over 15,000 are parasite....
     worms on the space shuttle Columbia
    Space Shuttle Columbia

    Space Shuttle Columbia was the first spaceworthy space shuttle in NASA's orbital fleet. Its first mission, STS-1, lasted from April 12 to April 14, 1981....
     survived its crash landing from 63 km
    Mesosphere

    The mesosphere is the layer of the Earth's atmosphere that is directly above the stratosphere and directly below the thermosphere. The mesosphere is located from about 50 km to 80-90 km altitude above the Earth's surface....
     inside a 4 kg locker, and samples of already dead moss were not damaged. Though this is not a very good example, being protected by the man-made locker and possibly pieces of the shuttle, it lends some support to the idea that life could survive a trip through the atmosphere. The existence of Martian meteorites and Lunar meteorite
    Lunar meteorite

    A Lunar meteorite is a meteorite that is known to have originated on the Moon....
    s on Earth suggests that transfer of material from other planets to Earth happens regularly.


  • Supporters of exogenesis also argue that on a larger scale, for life to emerge in one place in the Universe and subsequently spread to other planets would be simpler than similar life emerging separately on different planets. Thus, finding any evidence of extraterrestrial life similar to ours would lend credibility to exogenesis. However, this again assumes that the emergence of life in the entire Universe is rare enough as to limit it to one or few events or origination sites. Exogenesis still requires life to have originated from somewhere, most probably some form of geogenesis. Given the immense expanse of the entire Universe, there is a higher probability that there exists (or has existed) another Earth-like planet that has yielded life (geogenesis) than not. This explanation is more preferred under Occam's Razor than exogenesis since it theorizes that the creation of life is a matter of probability and can occur when the correct conditions are met rather than in exogenesis that assumes it is a singular event or that Earth did not meet those conditions on its own. In other words, exogenesis theorizes only one or few origins of life in the Universe, whereas geogenesis theorizes that it is a matter of probability depending on the conditions of the celestial body. Consider that even the most rare events on Earth can happen multiple times and independent of one another. However, since to date no extraterrestrial life has been confirmed, both theories still suffer from lack of information and too many unidentified variables.


Directed panspermia

A second prominent proponent of panspermia was the late Nobel prize winner Professor Francis Crick
Francis Crick

Francis Harry Compton Crick Order of Merit Royal Society , Ph.D., was a British molecular biology, physics, and neuroscience, and most noted for being one of the co-discoverers of the structure of the DNA molecule in 1953....
, OM
Order of Merit

The Order of Merit is a United Kingdom and Commonwealth of Nations Order bestowed by the Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. It was established in 1902 by King Edward VII of the United Kingdom as a reward for distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or for the promotion of culture....
 FRS, who along with Leslie Orgel
Leslie Orgel

Leslie Eleazer Orgel FRS was a United Kingdom chemist.Born in London, England, Orgel received his B.A. in chemistry with first class honors from University of Oxford University in 1949....
 proposed the theory of directed panspermia in 1973. This suggests that the seeds of life may have been purposely spread by an advanced extraterrestrial civilization. Crick argues that small grains containing DNA, or the building blocks of life, fired randomly in all directions is the best, most cost effective strategy for seeding life on a compatible planet at some time in the future. The strategy might have been pursued by a civilization facing catastrophic annihilation, or hoping to terraform
Terraforming

Terraforming of a planet, natural satellite, or other body is the hypothesis process of deliberately modifying its Earth's atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology to be similar to those of Earth to make it planetary habitability by humans....
 planets for later colonization. Later, after biologists had proposed that an "RNA world" might be involved in the origin of life, Crick noted that he had been overly pessimistic about the chances of life originating on Earth. See: Francis Crick
Francis Crick

Francis Harry Compton Crick Order of Merit Royal Society , Ph.D., was a British molecular biology, physics, and neuroscience, and most noted for being one of the co-discoverers of the structure of the DNA molecule in 1953....
.

Directed panspermia in reverse, from Earth to new solar systems, has been proposed to expand life in space.For example, microbial payloads launched by solar sails at speeds up to 0.0001 c (30,000 m/s) would reach targets at 10 to 100 light-years in 0.1 million to 1 million years. Fleets of microbial capsules can be aimed at clusters of new stars in star-forming clouds where they may land on planets, or captured by asteroids and comets and later delivered to planets. Payloads may contain extremophiles for diverse environments and cyanobacteria similar to early microorganisms. Hardy multicellular organisms (rotifer cysts) may be included to induce higher evolution.

The probability of hitting the target zone can be calculated from where A(target) is the cross-section of the target area, dy is the positional uncertainty at arrival; a - constant (depending on units), r(target) is the radius of the target area; v the velocity of the probe; (tp) the targeting precision (arcsec/yr); and d the distance to the target (all units in SIU). Guided by high-resolution astrometry of 1×10-5 arcsec/yr, almost nearby target stars (Alpha PsA, Beta Pictoris) can be seeded by milligrams of launched microbes; while seeding the Rho Ophiochus star-forming cloud requires hundreds of kilograms of dispersed capsules. The figure shows the launching of solar sail ships with effective thicknesses that will achieve final velocities as shown. The figure also shows the dispersion and capture of the microbial payload at the target solar system.

Directed panspermia is altruistic and may be motivated by life-centered “panbiotic ethics” that aims to secure and propagate our form of gene/protein organic life, and to establish life as a controlling force in nature.

Theoretically, by humans traveling to other celestial bodies such as the moon, there is a chance that they carry with them microorganisms or other organic materials ubiquitous on Earth, thus raising the curious possibility that we can seed life on other planetary bodies. The same can be said for unmanned probes manufactured on Earth. This is a concern among space researchers who try to prevent Earth contamination from distorting data, especially in regards to finding possible extraterrestrial life. Even the best sterilization techniques can not guarantee that potentially invasive biologic or organic materials will not be unintentionally carried along. So far, however, in the limited amount of space exploration conducted by humans, "terrestrial pollution" does not appear to be a problem although no concrete studies have investigated this. The harsh environments encountered throughout the rest of the solar system so far do not seem to support complex terrestrial life. However, matter exchange in form of meteor impacts has existed and will exist in the solar system even without human intervention. As evidence, some argue that anomalies found within Martian meteorite ALH 84001 indicate that bacteria could travel from planet to planet without intelligent help.

Deliberate directed panspermia would seed space objects. The securing of future life would need to balance against interference with science. This interference can be minimized by targeting remote solar systems where life would not have evolved yet. Seeding a few hundred young solar systems would secure future life while leaving billions of stars pristine for exploration.

There exists speculation on a connection to the Titius-Bode Law, arguing that Earth may have received seeds of life by directed panspermia, because the extraterrestrial senders knew that Earth belonged to a solar system with stable Titius-Bode structure.

Recent experiment

After enduring a 12-day orbital mission and a fiery reentry, an unmanned spacecraft, Foton-M3, awaits retrieval in a field in Kazakhstan. The 5,500-pound capsule, seven-feet in diameter, housed experiments testing the lithopanspermia theory. The capsule contained, among other things, lichen
Lichen

Lichens are composite organisms consisting of a symbiosis association of a fungus with a Photosynthesis partner , usually either a green algae or Cyanobacteria ....
 that were exposed to the radiation of space. Scientists also strapped basalt and granite disks riddled with cyanobacteria to the capsule's heat shield to see if the microorganisms could survive the brutal conditions of reentry. This batch didn't arrive alive but the scientists believe that it was at a disadvantage.
"When compared to a real meteorite," says Rene Demets, the European Space Agency's coordinator for space biological experiments for this mission, "the heat penetrates quite deeply into our test samples".


Future experiments


The Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment
Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment

The Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment is an interplanetary mission being developed by the Planetary Society. It will consist of sending selected microorganisms on a three-year interplanetary round-trip in a small capsule aboard the Russian Phobos-Grunt spacecraft in 2009....
, which is being developed by the Planetary Society
Planetary Society

The Planetary Society is a large, publicly supported, non-government and non-profit organization that has many research projects related to astronomy....
, will consist of sending selected microorganisms on a three-year interplanetary round-trip in a small capsule aboard the Russian Phobos-Grunt
Phobos-Grunt

Phobos-Grunt is a planned Russian sample return mission to Phobos , one of the natural satellite of Mars . A China Mars orbiter will be sent together with the mission....
 spacecraft
Spacecraft

A spacecraft is a Craft or machine designed for spaceflight. On a sub-orbital spaceflight, a spacecraft enters outer space then returns to the Earth....
 in 2009. The goal is to test whether organisms can survive for years in deep space. The experiment will test one aspect of transpermia, the hypothesis that life could survive space travel, if protected inside rocks blasted by impact off one planet to land on another.

See also

  • Anthropic principle
    Anthropic principle

    In physics and cosmology, the anthropic principle is the collective name for several ways of asserting that physical and chemistry theories, especially astrophysics and cosmology, need to take into account that there is life on Earth, and that one form of that life, Homo sapiens, has attained sapience....
  • Astrochemistry
    Astrochemistry

    Astrochemistry, the overlap of the disciplines of astronomy and chemistry, is the study of the abundance and reactions of chemical elements and molecules in space, and their interaction with radiation....
  • Back-contamination
    Back-contamination

    Back-contamination is the informal but widely employed name for the introduction of microbial Extraterrestrial life organisms into Earth's biosphere....
  • Biogenesis
    Biogenesis

    Biogenesis is the process of lifeforms producing other lifeforms, e.g. a spider lays eggs, which develop into spiders. It may also refer to biochemical processes of production in living organisms....
  • Drake equation
    Drake equation

    The Drake equation is a famous result in the speculative fields of exobiology and the SETI .This equation was devised by Frank Drake in 1960, in an attempt to estimate the number of extraterrestrial life civilizations in our galaxy with which we might come in contact....
  • Fermi paradox
    Fermi paradox

    The Fermi paradox is the apparent contradiction between high estimates of the probability of the existence of Extraterrestrial life and the lack of evidence for, or contact with, such civilizations....
  • Fine-tuned universe
    Fine-tuned universe

    The fine-tuned Universe is the idea that the conditions that allow life in the Universe can only occur when certain universal physical constants lie within a very narrow range, so that if any of several fundamental constants were only slightly different the universe would be unlikely to be conducive to the establishment and development of mat...
  • Forward-contamination
    Forward-contamination

    Forward-contamination is the contamination of other worlds with Earth microbes. The risk of forward-contamination is twofold: that human beings may accidentally seed a previously sterile world, thus creating "extraterrestrials" that are really of terrestrial origin ; or that an actual alien biosphere could be devastated by Earth's bacteria....
  • Human evolution
    Human evolution

    Human evolution, or anthropogenesis, is the part of biological evolution concerning the emergence of Homo sapiens as a distinct species from other hominans, great apes and placental mammals....
  • Life on Mars
    Life on Mars

    Scientists have long speculated about the possibility of life on Mars owing to the planet's proximity and similarity to Earth. Although fictional Martians have been a recurring feature of popular entertainment, it remains an open question whether life currently exists on Mars, or has existed there in the past....
  • Important publications in origin of life
  • List of molecules in interstellar space
    List of molecules in interstellar space

    This is a list of molecules that have been detected in the interstellar medium, grouped by the number of component atoms. The chemical formula is listed for each detected compound, along with any ionized form that has also been observed....
  • Creation myth
  • Origin of life
  • Paleoclimatology
    Paleoclimatology

    Paleoclimatology is the study of climate change taken on the scale of the entire history of Earth. It uses records from ice sheets, tree rings, sediment, and rock s to determine the past state of the climate system on Earth....
  • Planetary habitability
    Planetary habitability

    Planetary habitability is the measure of a planet's or a natural satellite's potential to develop and sustain life. As the existence of extraterrestrial life is currently uncertain, planetary habitability is largely an extrapolation of conditions on Earth and the characteristics of the Sun and solar system which appear favorable to life's f...
  • Rare Earth hypothesis
    Rare Earth hypothesis

    In planetary astronomy and astrobiology, the Rare Earth hypothesis argues that the origin of life of complex multicellular life on Earth required an improbable combination of astrophysics and geology events and circumstances....
  • Red rain in Kerala
    Red rain in Kerala

    From July 25 to September 23, 2001, red rain sporadically fell on the southern Indian state of Kerala. Heavy downpours occurred in which the rain was coloured red, staining clothes with an appearance similar to that of blood....
  • Star Jelly
    Star jelly

    Star jelly or pwdre s?r is an alleged compound purportedly deposited on the earth during meteor shower. It is described as a foul-smelling, gelatinous substance, which tends to evaporate shortly after having fallen....
  • Timeline of the Big Bang
    Timeline of the Big Bang

    This timeline of the Big Bang describes the events according to the widely accepted scientific theory of the Big Bang, using the cosmological time parameter of comoving coordinates....
  • Universal common ancestor


External links

  • , by Brig Klyce
  • Scientific American, November 2005.
  • , by N. Chandra Wickramasinghe & Brig Klyce
  • , spread life to outer space - beinspace
  • — Modern panspermia advocates. This site claims cosmic ancestry; not only that life on Earth originated in space, but that life has existed since the beginning of time, as well as an alternative explanation of evolution.
  • — cosmic ancestry
  • — Panspermia criticism from the intelligent design
    Intelligent design

    Intelligent design is the term used for the assertion that "certain features of the universe and of life are best explained by an intelligent causality, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a modern form of the traditional teleological argument for the existence of God that avoids specifying the nature or identity of th...
     community
  • Francis Crick's for a lecture on Directed Panspermia, dated 5 November 1976.
  • — Space shuttle "Columbia" proves that atmosphere entry is possible
  • — CNN Report by Jebediah Reed