Space born viruses & bacteria

In my 9th grade biology class, we are learning about bacteria and viruses, and though i already know a lot about them, i thought about this today, there are bacteria that are air born, such as pollen and some others, meaning they travel through the air. Does anyone think it’s possible for bacteria or a virus to be space born, or travel through space until picked up by an organism?

[edit on 3/30/2005 by Schmidt1989]

It could be possible for a virus or pathogen to survive in a virtual vacume. I feel that perhaps it might be the way the earth was "seeded" so to say. It's hard to tell though as I do not have a vacume chamber to conduct a proper study.
I know that a comet has traviling with it in it's nuecleus the seeds for life ie. water, ice and lord knows what else. The recent landing of that satilite that came home from the mission to gather dust from the comets tail should start giving clues as to it's makeup.

good, thats going to be cool what we find.

Here's proof that microbes can survive a trip to the moon, stay for three years, be brought back and still survive.

The Surveyor probes were the first U.S. spacecraft to land safely on the Moon. In November, 1969, the Surveyor 3 spacecraft's microorganisms were recovered from inside its camera that was brought back to Earth under sterile conditions by the Apollo 12 crew.

The 50-100 organisms survived launch, space vacuum, 3 years of radiation exposure, deep-freeze at an average temperature of only 20 degrees above absolute zero, and no nutrient, water or energy source.

Click here for the website.

IMO, I don't think that viruses can be born in space though, you need a liquid like water for life to start. In space I don't see how that is possible.

yeah, rwatkins, i read that in another thread from you i think. maybe there trapped on an ateriod under water ice, then x rays and uv rays and radiowaves hitting them formed them or something. or maybe heat from the impact if the ateriod hit a planet, then got frozen again and stayed there for 30,000 years like that one bacteria the found in ice a few moths back.

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born or borne?

A species evolving in space would require some richness/density of organic chemistry and some [mild?] energy source.
possible, but lower probability. Maybe in some nebulae cloud or something.

The possibility of a microbe or its spore from a planet getting thrown off and surviving in raw space seems reasonably possible.

There are spiders that spin silk and use it to fly miles into the sky. And that's a spider.

The microbe would have be ready to deal with a water/air/nutrient/energy desert and a presure vacuum. Some already do some of these things. They would seem to have the highest probability of survival in space.

Birds evolved to live in the sky. Some stay airborne for Years. At somepoint [maybe already] there may be species evolved to live [for some period of time] in space itself.

I am having creepy visions of Alien from the movie. *shudder* Intense.

Imagine a species that launches itself at some target planet and drops into torpor/stasis till it arrives, VERY HUNGRY!

[edit on 30-3-2005 by slank]

Originally posted by Schmidt1989
or maybe heat from the impact if the ateriod hit a planet, then got frozen again and stayed there for 30,000 years like that one bacteria the found in ice a few moths back.

The microbes came from Earth and were on the Surveyer 3 when it was sent to the Moon. Then it stayed there for three years, then it was retreived, and taken back to Earth. But the point was that some microbes can survive the vacuum of space and when put back into the environment, they started to grow again.

Sorry, no space virus.

You don't need water and oxygen. Microbes could get frozen, travel space and reanimate when in contact with light, oxygen and water.

Originally posted by xalex
You don't need water and oxygen. Microbes could get frozen, travel space and reanimate when in contact with light, oxygen and water.

Actually there's no absolute need for oxygen or light.
There's entire ecosystems living from heat and sulfur compounds around black smokers in bottoms of deep oceans.


www.amnh.org...
www.thirteen.org...
www.ocean.udel.edu...
www.oceansonline.com...

Fred Hoyle certainly believed so:

"... There’s no doubt that Hoyle should have shared the Nobel Prize for the monumental achievement of working out where the elements come from – they are cooked in stars. We are all stardust, or nuclear waste, depending on your point of view. But he was ignored because of his wild ideas, like the proposition that life came to Earth from space. Panspermia as it’s known......"