Astrobiologists discover fossils in meteorite fragments, confirming extraterrestrial life

Originally posted by smurfy
reply to post by smurfy

 

He said: "I've got ongoing collaborations with, for example, the Russian space agency. Next year is 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's first manned trip around the world. To mark this, we're doing lots of experiments such as looking for viruses and evidence of cometary organics coming in from space. To continue work like that I have to set up a company."

edit on 12-3-2013 by smurfy because: Text.

I have heard mentioned that SPANISH INFLUENZA and the the BLACK PLAGUE amonst a few other major epidemics also, where preceded by a lot of activity in the sky, meaning comets/UFO's/meteors where spotted days and hours before outbreaks of these things, including red rain and feathery filaments being discovered that are maybe connected to some of this, the filaments actually showed up as biological but subsequently the lab burned down that was studying them, and there where no other samples to carry on working with..... Bunch of Baloney, or something more sinister at Work? you decide!

PEACE!!

reply to post by goou111


Could it have been the part of material from the Earth, during some ancient catastrophical accidents, causing parts of the Earth to have left our orbyt, and later got back? Just asking, as a possible option? Hypothesis?

Originally posted by OnionHead
reply to post by FreeThinkerbychoice

 

Don't get me started on Earth like creatures on Mars, I buckle laughing at those threads.

Well, not exactly Earthlike creatures, but NASA is now saying that their Curiosity chemistry means that Mars could have supported life.

If this can be proven to come from somewhere besides earth, it would lend support to the idea that life is generally similar across our galaxy or at least solar system. I always laugh when people say that "its a mistake to think of ET life being ANYTHING LIKE Earth Life"... I used to think that way. I've seen quite a few comments like that regarding Mars, lately... Now that is where I want to kick someone right in the head and say "Look, 'dude', earth and mars have been exchanging ejaculates for like...I dunno...years or something. And IN that ejecta would be all kinds of life. Some of which could survive such a journey.

Originally posted by smurfy

Originally posted by OnionHead
reply to post by FreeThinkerbychoice

 

Don't get me started on Earth like creatures on Mars, I buckle laughing at those threads.

Well, not exactly Earthlike creatures, but NASA is now saying that their Curiosity chemistry means that Mars could have supported life.

Yeah I think I seen this via a NASA post on facebook

www.jpl.nasa.gov...

I genuinely believe that they will find something soon, and that would be excellent. I just highly doubt it will look like a rat, or a lizard, in fact anything that resembles an Earth like creature.

Those threads though, they crack me up (Lizard rock). I'm not going to pretend I'm an expert in the subject, I've read a few articles, watched a few docs, from what I've seen this Curiosity machine is and amazing piece of engineering and landing it on the surface of another planet is an amazing accomplishment in itself. There's obviously some super smart brains behind the whole mission, so when I see people picking animal shapes out of rocks, and then suggesting where Nasa should have landed Curiosity, I do have a chuckle to myself. I believe they are looking in the right place, and I am quite sure they know what they are doing.

It will be really exciting if life or previous signs of life can be found on Mars as surely that would just confirm that the universe is packed with it. Also I'm thinking this gets everyone on board for the planning of a mission to Jupiter's moons, or Saturn's moons.

Originally posted by DARREN1976

Originally posted by smurfy
reply to post by smurfy

 

He said: "I've got ongoing collaborations with, for example, the Russian space agency. Next year is 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's first manned trip around the world. To mark this, we're doing lots of experiments such as looking for viruses and evidence of cometary organics coming in from space. To continue work like that I have to set up a company."

edit on 12-3-2013 by smurfy because: Text.

I have heard mentioned that SPANISH INFLUENZA and the the BLACK PLAGUE amonst a few other major epidemics also, where preceded by a lot of activity in the sky, meaning comets/UFO's/meteors where spotted days and hours before outbreaks of these things, including red rain and feathery filaments being discovered that are maybe connected to some of this, the filaments actually showed up as biological but subsequently the lab burned down that was studying them, and there where no other samples to carry on working with..... Bunch of Baloney, or something more sinister at Work? you decide!

PEACE!!

edit on 12-3-2013 by DARREN1976 because: (no reason given)

Whatever, (I been hearing stuff like this since I was very young) and to be fair to the man it's very much early days yet as the pretty reasonable MIT take on it says. Chandra Wickramasinghe is not exactly the everyday quack either, as some posts imply. He has had a prestigious education, is a professor and held prestigious posts. One can't even say that he has fell out of his tree because of old age, he's been pursuing this line of thinking for many years. On the other hand, he and Hoyle got it wrong over the Archaeopteryx fossil, which they said was a fraud.
However, for this thread, in the paper published on 5th march, (see below) one of the early mentions is that the police reports say some people were burned, (minor) picking up the stones. If that is true, then it gives weight to the stones being parts of a meteorite, and a good deal to the rest. If it's not true, then the whole thing falls apart from the very start, and all that's left is pretty pictures, no peer reviews no nothing.

(Extract) "Police records indicate reports of low level
burn injuries from immediate contact with the fallen
stones and subsequent reports of a strong aroma. One
woman was reported to have lost consciousness and was
transported to the hospital after inhaling fumes"


It will be interesting to see how today's NASA findings on Mars will be received, will their feet be kissed?

copy and paste and rejoin the URL for the link

http ://journalofcosmology.com/JOC22/Paper22(2).pdf

reply to post by Astyanax

Chandra Wickramasinghe is also on the editorial board of the Journal of Cosmology, a more-or-less crank publication dedicated to fringe subjects like panspermia.

Panspermia is not fringe, it was subject of a publication on ALH84001 from 2000 published in top Science journal.

Fulltext here, free 0.97 MB

www.gps.caltech.edu/~jkirschvink/pdfs/panspermia.pdf



www.sciencemag.org/content/290/5492/791.abstract

Science 27 October 2000:
Vol. 290 no. 5492 pp. 791-795
DOI: 10.1126/science.290.5492.791

Report

A Low Temperature Transfer of ALH84001 from Mars to Earth

Benjamin P. Weiss 1, *,
Joseph L. Kirschvink 1,
Franz J. Baudenbacher 2,
Hojatollah Vali 3,
Nick T. Peters 2,
Francis A. Macdonald 1,
John P. Wikswo 2

- Author Affiliations

1 Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, 170-25, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.
2 Department of Physics and Astronomy, Vanderbilt University, 6301 Stevenson Center, Nashville, TN 37235, USA.
3 Electron Microscopy Centre, Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology and Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, McGill University, 3640 University Street, Montreal QC H3A 2B2, Canada.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

The ejection of material from Mars is thought to be caused by large impacts that would heat much of the ejecta to high temperatures. Images of the magnetic field of martian meteorite ALH84001 reveal a spatially heterogeneous pattern of magnetization associated with fractures and rock fragments. Heating the meteorite to 40°C reduces the intensity of some magnetic features, indicating that the interior of the rock has not been above this temperature since before its ejection from the surface of Mars. Because this temperature cannot sterilize most bacteria or eukarya, these data support the hypothesis that meteorites could transfer life between planets in the solar system.

and some ppl still wants "proof" of life out there... as if this one is not enough.
and we go on living and ppl still goes on saying there is no life out there.

Actually, to be correct, it confirms life was found in a rock that was found on earth.

To be accurate you have to find it while on Mars itself.

That's great news, things like this are always fascinating and I hope we do find some extraterrestrial beings

Has this been posted? The authenticity of this "discovery" is dubious. It may be Pan-Spamia rather than Panspermia.

news.discovery.com...

reply to post by zayonara


And here is another article pointing out some serious problems with the "discovery".

in summary:

1/ the rock in question has not actually been positively shown to be from the meteorite claimed - or even that it is a metorite AT ALL!

2/ they do not show that there is no contamination from earth life forms

Reality is fascinating. Reality in fact doesn't cover it, since there's likely more than that which we call our reality.

Two options. There has always been sentience, and biology evolved to house it in this continually dynamic/tangible realm. Or sentience spawned from cold dead atoms/molecules. No matter how long or what mechanisms may be responsible for that, it's still a rather absurd concept. Not sure what I believe, not even sure if we are in a position to make an informed decision at this point. Both options are fascinating and would say a lot about the nature of our universe/sentience forever more.

reply to post by Vasa Croe


My thoughts exactly. It could very well be of Earth origin, from a prior impact ejecting Earth material into the solar system. The Moon is from Earth, from a much earlier collision.

Originally posted by AkumaStreak
Or sentience spawned from cold dead atoms/molecules. No matter how long or what mechanisms may be responsible for that, it's still a rather absurd concept.

no - the idea that it must be absurd "no matter what" is what is absurd.

Originally posted by Aloysius the Gaul

Originally posted by AkumaStreak
Or sentience spawned from cold dead atoms/molecules. No matter how long or what mechanisms may be responsible for that, it's still a rather absurd concept.

no - the idea that it must be absurd "no matter what" is what is absurd.

To be clear, I am agnostic, and am a scientist at least in the sense that I have a science degree (I'm not here to covert you to anything). I understand evolution, but even for many people who do, there is a core gut feeling for many that doesn't sit well regarding sentience.

What caused the first self-aware organism to "wake up"? What is the force behind it? Evolutionary forces don't answer all of the questions for me. It's a chicken and egg question, really. I simply think sentience might be more than a byproduct of certain kinds of life. It might be older than our universe. No I can't say how, heh.

reply to post by Kody27

Do you not feel even a little bit embarrassed about posting a headline that contains "confirming extraterrestrial life", as though it was a fact?"

No, because the headline is from the article I posted and the rules in this forum say it has to be the exact headline.

Just a reminder - Don't confuse Evolution and Abiogenesis. They are not the same thing. Evolution does not comment on the origin of life, it simply cites a definitive evidence base both morphologically and now genetically for a common ancestry of all life on Earth, along with the principle of constant change.

"What Evolution is Not" - ENSI

Abiogenesis is a different topic.

Also, don't trust anyone who demands that:

1. You must allow Celebrity SSkeptics to do your thinking for you.

2. That personal attacks, and comments on irrelevant circumstantial study features is how peer review is conducted. It is not. These article authors are POSERS.

3. That we are not able to tell the difference between a rock and meteorite (I have four meteorites in my metallurgy labs), or that we cannot tell the difference between a rock pattern and a fossil. (These are both ridiculous contentions).

These practices are traits of fear and disdain. Rather, be skeptical, but ethical at the same time. Hold fake sskeptics accountable for bad science. Allow the scientific method to proceed even if they do not like that. The world is no longer as it was in 1973, we do not have to swallow one-liners at face value because we have no resources to draw from. False contentions will eventually falsify themselves through added facts, and not through the personal brilliance of a non-expert who just talks loudly.

I am skeptical, but I want the science and not the rhetoric.

reply to post by wujotvowujotvowujotvo

'Fringe' is not the same as 'crank'. The first pertains to subjects that are scientifically respectable, if far-fetched and lacking sufficient data to draw trustworthy conclusions from. The second refers to unscientific nonsense and those who perpetrate it.

Panspermia is a fringe hypothesis. Chandra Wickramasinghe, who was indeed once a respectable scientist, has become, I fear, a crank. This saddens me personally—I don't know him, but I know people who do, and he's supposed to be a decent man. Unfortunately, he hitched his wagon to a starfaring microbe, and can't seem to get it unhitched. I suppose it's too late now. Poor fellow.