Did Life On Earth Arrive On A Comet?

[Michaelangelica]

DID LIFE ON EARTH ARRIVE ON A COMET?
I thought we would already have a thread on this but can't find it
(except the one on psychedelic-mushrooms-from-outer-space)

Look at this from the BBC!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/l...gs/comet.shtml

By simulating a high-velocity comet collision with the Earth, a team of scientists has shown that organic molecules hitch-hiking aboard a comet could have survived an impact and seeded life on Earth.

This is the beginning of a new field of science

Jennifer Blank, University of California
The results add weight to the theory that the raw materials for life came from space.

and

Scientists have managed to create "primitive cells" in an experiment which may indicate that life began in space and was delivered to Earth.


The delivery of these compounds could well have been critical to the origin of life on Earth.

Dr Louis Allamandola
Researchers working with the American space agency Nasa say their "proto-cells" mimic the membranous structures found in all living things. They were produced in a laboratory experiment that duplicated the harsh conditions of cold interstellar space.

This is a BBC show promo
Sounds worth listening to
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/prog...and/tx/aliens/

Tuesday 14 November, 9pm on BBC Two

Clouds of alien life forms are sweeping through outer space and infecting planets with life – it may not be as far-fetched as it sounds.

The idea that life on Earth came from another planet has been around as a modern scientific theory since the 1960s when it was proposed by Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe. At the time they were ridiculed for their idea – known as panspermia. But now, with growing evidence, it's back in vogue and even being studied by NASA.

We meet the scientists on a mission to get to the bottom of the beginnings of life on Earth - from the team in Texas who are lovingly building a robotic submarine called DEPTHX to explore a moon of Jupiter, to Southern India where they are investigating a mysterious red rain which fell for two months in 2001. According to local scientist Godfrey Louis, the rain contains biological cells unlike any he had seen before – with no DNA and the ability to replicate at 300°C. Louis has come to the conclusion that the cells are extra-terrestrial in origin.

Could all this really be proof that We are the aliens?

[TheBigDog]

How did it get on the comet?

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by TheBigDog

How did it get on the comet?

LOL

Good point


Hitched?

Perhaps the show on Tuesday 14 November, 9pm on BBC Two, may have some answers

[paigetheoracle]

Originally Posted by TheBigDog

How did it get on the comet?

How do you know and how can any of us know? It isa question we can only speculate on, not being millions of years old but I digress.

Interesting question. Life is an opportunist (It gives everywhere no matter what bait you put in the traps and spreads at a phenomenal rate, eating anything it can get its teeth into). It's already been proved I seem to recall, that meteorites have been proved to have come from Mars and got there through other large chunks of rock hitting the planet - hence life could have been thrown into space this way too and got caught in the pull of a passing comet or jusy dropped to Earth as evidence seems to show.

If it is drifting around in space (miro-organisms/building blocks of life - is a virus alive and able better to survive in a vacuum than ordinary organic matter, one wonders?), could it have been crashing into the Earth for millions of years but only 'germinated' when conditions were ripe? (not to hot/not too cold - enough oxygen/liquid water etc.). If this is the case maybe, just like in John Campbell's story 'The Thing', frozen samples of such life may be waiting to be discovered in the icy wastes of the poles or to grow and reproduce, should the poles melt when there's a pole shift. The idea is not new and has occured in several films, books and TV programs (Dr Who, The Avengers, 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' to name three off the top of my head: All forms of plant life in the instances I'm referring to but I believe Star Trek covered micro-organisms, latent on a frozen world).

Another thought. Could this explain the Mass Extinctions of the past? (One form of life stepping into the void of another, like a viral disease; organizing itself into more complex life forms after wiping out the native species?).