Rosetta comet 'may be home to alien life'

As far as I know Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe, and Wallis have the credentials, but are often controversial in their work. Wickramasinghe certainly has his critics. I suppose now there is a need to go and look to what the Rosetta team are saying if anything. 'Groan'

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: marioonthefly

So, to be absolutely clear, there are no indications of the presence of microbiological life on the comet.

There are the compounds necessary for certain life to evolve/exist, however there has been no suggestion that there is any evidence which points to the presence of life there, beyond the potential for its existence, given the chemical building blocks which are present.

Although I agree with the scientists quoted in the article, that the possibilities where extremophile lifeforms are concerned, open up the field of possible life bearing locations and planets to those previously thought anathema to all life, and also agree that this should be taken into account when deciding what equipment is placed on a spacecraft, I also believe that it is wise to be absolutely, RIGIDLY clear when reporting on the subject.

Personally, I am of the opinion that it is not appropriate for the journalists who wrote and edited the article you linked to, to use a headline such as they have, because for the laypersons, i.e. nine tenths of the readership of that article, it will seem as if much more probative data has been acquired, than the body of the article would suggest.

I second that, that's why I say wait to see if anything comes from the Rosetta team, or rather if they have an opinion on it, since the gear isn't on the probe to determine anything specific. I tend to think this a report taking advantage of a controversial figure in Wickramasinghe, who may only be speculating in a general way, but who is an advocate of panspermia from way back, and comets have been his big thing

Here's a more balanced report from The Guardian, including a repost from another scientist, Stuart Clarke who says "no life on the comet",

www.theguardian.com...

part of the PDF on what they are saying from Buckingham University,

"Though its crust is very black, four indicators of underlying icy morphology are evident. 67P has
smooth, planar ‘seas’ (the largest 600 x 800m) and flat-bottomed craters, both features on comet
Tempel-1. 67P’s surface is peppered with mega-boulders (10-70km) like comet Hartley-2, while
parallel furrowed terrain is a new ice feature. The largest sea (‘Cheops’ sea, 600 x 800m) curves
around one lobe of the 4km diameter comet and the crater lakes up to ~150m across are re-frozen
water with organic-rich debris covered by sublimation lag of order 10-cm thick plus impact regolith.
The parallel furrows relate to flexing of the asymmetric and spinning two-lobe body, which
generates fractures in an underlying body of ice. The mega-boulders are hypothesised to arise from
bolide impacts into ice: in the very low gravity, boulders ejected at a fraction of 1m/s would readily
reach ~100m from the impact crater and could land perched on elevated surfaces. Where they
stand proud, they indicate stronger refrozen terrain or that the surface they land on (and crush)
sublimates more quickly. Outgassing due to ice-sublimation was already evident in September at
3.3AU, with surface temperature peaks of 220-230K, which implies impure ice mixtures with less
strongly-bound H2O. Increasing sublimation as Rosetta follows comet 67P around its 1.3 AU
perihelion will further reveal the nature and prevalence of near-surface ices.

The pdf, (copy and paste then close the gap after http in the search bar)

http: //www.buckingham.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Rosetta-images-of-Comet-67P-Churyumov–Gerasimenko-1.pdf

Here's an article with a bunch of links to what other scientists have to say about this 'disvovery':
What Other Scientists Are Saying About Today's "Life on a Comet" Claim

Is there any actual way we can verify or dismiss this, say by launching a second probe to intercept the Comet?

Or will this be another "Alien life" circle jerk?

a reply to: smurfy

Excellent work there smurfy. Clearly you researched your post. A certain pair of scientists, referred to in the OP of this thread, should take note!

originally posted by: admirethedistance
Wickramasinghe claims evidence of life all over the place. If he says it, it's a fairly safe bet that there's no truth to it whatsoever.

Now then maybe one day when we have the eyes to look we will find life all over the place..

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: smurfy

Excellent work there smurfy. Clearly you researched your post. A certain pair of scientists, referred to in the OP of this thread, should take note!

I did also look around some presumably non-scientific bloggers in their reply to the stories, and they all relate to much the same thing.


(1)But in all seriousness, it was interesting watching astronomers on Twitter talk about it.

(2) Perhaps the best advice was from Katie Mack:When you see "[Shocking headline-grabbing thing], says top scientist(s)!" you should put a VERY heavy prior on the thing being false.

(3) Whether there is, or isnt, merit to these theories is almost irrelevant. The true value of this story is to show up the fact that the world of science is the bitchiest, egoistical and envy ridden profession.

Perhaps one scientific example from Stuart Clarke, "Diatoms my arse" while he slated The Guardian for using the story..in The Guardian.

Thing is Wickramasinghe seems a bit cheeky, when you hear from those who disagree, while they themselves disagree from much the same standpoint, because none of them actually know for certain as of now, and the Rosetta team will be making a report of their findings to date end of July it seems.

The other thing is, Wickramasinghe, Hoyle, Hawkin, Crick, Orgel and others all have aspired to Panspermia and some of those to directed Panspermia, that is by the hand of others...Gods, aliens I don't give a shii'te.

I quite like Ol' Wickry, and he's been around for a long long time, and he has some good stuff under the belt, and he is still in his job.

Now, is a black Crow really white!

If microbial life is ever found on a comet, it just says it all about Panspermia being the method that life uses to procreate. What better transmission medium could there possibly be than a comet? It sprays this material for millions and billions of miles into the solar system and every planet has been touched by them in some way, violently as well as being dusted over.

I have always been in the same camp as Wickramasinghe, Wallis and many other open minded scientists. It is just too perfect not to be true. All you need is to just have a physical piece of it. That is probably the only way it will be accepted by the cautious main stream anyway. You will always be able to find fault in the analysis conducted by a remote machine.

a reply to: charlyv

You know what they say about things being too perfect

According to astronomer and astrobiologist Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe

That was all you needed to read to know this is worse than BIN or GLP.

originally posted by: MarioOnTheFly
a reply to: charlyv

You know what they say about things being too perfect

Hear that, but the mechanism seems so obvious you almost wonder why it would not be that way.
Like the existence of train tracks but not trains.

How could possibly microbial life appear and evolve on a comet? I think life needs a more hospitable and complex environment (complete with lots of liquid water) in order to appear. Any microbes on a comet would have gotten there from a planet (no idea how).

There's a good possibility of microbial life in places like Mars or Europa, but really not so much on a comet.

And by the way, doesn't that scientist know that most objects in the outer Solar System are covered with dark (reddish) hydrocarbons? They are the result of methane and other basic organic molecules being bombarded by radiation and cosmic rays for millions of years.

a reply to: wildespace

Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe. No more needs to be said.

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04
a reply to: wildespace

Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe. No more needs to be said.

For some people, more needs to be said, as they (like me) might not be familiar with his history of claims right off the bat. Saying that, I now recall his previous allegations, so it does put it all into a perspective.

But many people will see "top scientist" mentioned in the MSM articles, and automatically assume there is some credence to his claims.

Besides, my post was more about the general idea that life comes to planets from comets, which is supported by many others in the scientific circles.

a reply to: wildespace

Same dude who I think was involved in the titanium balls seeding alien life on Earth a few months ago. The red rain being alien life seeding Earth with alien life ... notice a trend? Alien life, seeding Earth, it's all he does, and he sees it everywhere.

originally posted by: admirethedistance
Wickramasinghe claims evidence of life all over the place. If he says it, it's a fairly safe bet that there's no truth to it whatsoever.

Disparage the local loon wearing a tin foil hat and so on...fine, but this guy is an accredited, mainstream scientist.

Worked closely with the world famous astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle, and is renown in his own right coming up with the Panspermia theory of seeding life among other things.

Getting a bit rich when members post that a world famous, highly respected, NON tin foil hat wearing scientist worthiness is thrown out with the bathwater without a second thought mate.,,simply because what he suggests doesn't jive with your own unprofessional point of view.

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04
a reply to: wildespace

Same dude who I think was involved in the titanium balls seeding alien life on Earth a few months ago. The red rain being alien life seeding Earth with alien life ... notice a trend? Alien life, seeding Earth, it's all he does, and he sees it everywhere.

And if the evidence points to his theory being even slightly correct, of course he'd naturally be seeing it in all things related to his field of expertise.

Otherwise it would be like a mechanic not recognising machines, a doctor not recognising a respiratory system, or a skeptic seeing truth in all things conspiratorial...

a reply to: MysterX

No, it would be like a mechanic seeing dogs and cats as robots, because no matter what they look at all they see are machines.

a reply to: OccamsRazor04

A mechanic doesn't usually specialise in biological machines do they...we usually call that kind of mechanic a Doctor.

originally posted by: MysterX
but this guy is an accredited, mainstream scientist.

Being such doesn't safeguard a person from believing in fairies and putting out questionable or outright false ideas. Take for example John Hartnett, an accredited physicist with a PhD who works at a University, has worked with the European Space Agency, and has some very valid and useful research under his belt.

At the same time, he's a Christian with a biblical creationist worldview, and seeks evidence and support for biblical myths and concepts, for example the "waters above" being the Kuiper belt. johnhartnett.org...

So yeah, nobody's perfect, and people can be very wrong in certain things while they were right in other things. Science doesn't rest on the shoulders of a single scientist (or a small group of them), it rests on the shoulders of scientific method, meticulous research, and repeated observations or experiments.