[meteorite-list] Panspermia, Reverse Panspermia & Life In Space

From: Mark Ford <mark.ford_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 09:27:59 +0100
Message-ID: <29A9DB45B84970458190D7D39BD42C4960704F_at_gamma.ssl.atw>

Many studies have been done which suggest some microbes or Archaea could
potentially survive a short trip to mars inside a rock (under perfect
ideal conditions that is), even Lichen has been shown to survive in
space. But the physics of a suitable impact would suggest that at best
we would be talking a very limited number of very tough 'archaea' type
microbes only, if at all, you are certainly not going to get any plants
and animals sent to mars.

 So, it could only be certain select microbes which stood even a remote
a chance, it's likely most would just perish after a few million years
in space and never taking hold when they landed, they would after all be
trapped deep inside a rock. And we don't even know if rocks actually
have made it from Earth to Mars anyway, very few have I suspect, in
theory they may, but in theory there should also be Venus rocks on
Earth, but then we haven't found any yet?.

I would guess that statistically not enough material transfer has gone
on, to reliably seed mars from Earth, although in recent years I bet the
Mars Landers have brought their fair share of Earth based microbe
contamination, (there are rover parts that are impossible to sterilize),
especially bearing in mind there are countless strange archaea that have
yet to be recognized by science let alone understood.

To be honest this whole Panspermia concept, has become a bit of a
religion in some circles, how is it more likely that Earth was seeded
by alien life than that that the Earth started life by itself? Earth is
perfect for life, all the ingredients are or where present, we haven't
seen anywhere else in the universe like earth for long enough, so it
seems sensible to assume it all started right here... in a galaxy not
so very far away..

Mark



-----Original Message-----
From: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] On Behalf Of
Meteorites USA
Sent: 05 June 2009 06:18
To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Subject: [meteorite-list] Panspermia, Reverse Panspermia & Life In Space

Hi list,

I know I've posted a lot today, but bear with me. I've been doing some
research since I found the article on the meteorite that Mars rover
Opportunity found on Mars earlier and it got me to thinking about how it

got there and where it was from. This led to more research and more
questions...

We know meteorites come from other celestial bodies, whether they be
from asteroids, comets, or planets. All types of meteorites have been
found on Earth but... What about the reverse?

We know it happens because we have lunar and martian meteorites here on
Earth. Over the last few months I've been reading about panspermia and
artificial planet seeding too which are very interesting topics.

You can imagine the force a huge asteroid would exert on the crust of
our planet during an impact event and would eject quite a bit of
material into space.

This all brings up some very interesting questions... If Panspermia is a

theory, then wouldn't reverse panspermia (life originating from Earth)
suggest it's very plausible and not just possible to seed life on other
planets from another by impact, travel and time?

Having said that let me illustrate a scenario. A huge asteroid impacted
Earth millions of years ago throwing millions of tons of debris into our

atmosphere. Some of this debris will escape Earth's gravity and make it
into space. How much is arguable. Wouldn't it be possible for some
microbe or bacteria to be preserved deep inside a clump of Earth, and
flash frozen in the iciness of space?

How many billions of bacteria, and microbes, or even insects have been
launched into space over the hundreds or even thousands of large impacts

the Earth has been subject to since the beginning of time? Look at the
jungles of South America and Africa and other tropical regions. The
density of life in any given square foot is higher than on any other
place on the planet. If a large Asteroid impacted this region you can
imagine the sheer numbers of "life forms" that escaped Earth.

Survivability is the issue. If the microbe or "life form" is deep enough

within the stone, rock, or clump of earth, wouldn't it be preserved.
wouldn't this Earth rock act as a capsule to transport life outside our
own solar system? Current science tells us that the temperature of the
interior of a meteoroid entering our atmosphere is relatively low. In
fact it is usually ambient to space. In other words cold! Frozen even.
This is sufficient to allow a microbial life form to survive isn't it?
Look up Water Bear on Google...

http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=artic
le&sid=2905&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/081016-am-tardigrade-toughness.htm
l

Wouldn't this mean that there could be space rocks out there with "life"

within them right now? Life that came from Earth? And if there's life
out there that comes from Earth, it wouldn't take a rocket scientist to
guess that there might be other material out there that might just have
come from another habitable solar system. I know these are big jumps and

guesses, but isn't it possible considering the sheer length of time, the

age of our planet, and the number of impact events over this time period

on other celestial bodies and planets?

I mean we are talking about billions of years here...

Your thoughts?

-- 
Regards,
Eric Wichman
Meteorites USA
http://www.meteoritesusa.com
904-236-5394
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Received on Fri 05 Jun 2009 04:27:59 AM PDT