Extraterrestrial life

Readers may recall the paper advocating panspermia (life came from outer space) in the journal Progress in Biophysics & Molecular Biology. It has attracted paywalled replies from Keith Baverstock and Karin Moelling, Also a paywalled response from the authors. Because many of our readers can’t afford all that reading material, a friend kindly offers some notes to the bunfight: — The reply by Karin Moelling, a German virologist, starts off positive toward the paper. She makes the highly dubious claim that “there are billions of habitable planets in our galaxy.” We just don’t know that. She also makes the strange, unbacked assertion that “Retroviruses caused the Cambrian explosion of all animal species.” She thus seems to endorse the original paper’s claim Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: Yes, NASA is shaking the can again but never mind. Iron-rich rocks near ancient lake sites on Mars could hold vital clues that show life once existed there, research suggests. These rocks — which formed in lake beds — are the best place to seek fossil evidence of life from billions of years ago, researchers say. A new study that sheds light on where fossils might be preserved could aid the search for traces of tiny creatures — known as microbes — on Mars, which it is thought may have supported primitive life forms around four billion years ago. A team of scientists has determined that sedimentary rocks made of compacted mud or clay are the most likely Read More ›

Abstract: We review the salient evidence consistent with or predicted by the Hoyle-Wickramasinghe (H-W) thesis of Cometary (Cosmic) Biology. Much of this physical and biological evidence is multifactorial. One particular focus are the recent studies which date the emergence of the complex retroviruses of vertebrate lines at or just before the Cambrian Explosion of ∼500 Ma. Such viruses are known to be plausibly associated with major evolutionary genomic processes. We believe this coincidence is not fortuitous but is consistent with a key prediction of H-W theory whereby major extinction-diversification evolutionary boundaries coincide with virus-bearing cometary-bolide bombardment events. A second focus is the remarkable evolution of intelligent complexity (Cephalopods) culminating in the emergence of the Octopus. A third focus concerns the micro-organism Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: Questions about whether other universes might exist as part of a larger Multiverse, and if they could harbour life, are burning issues in modern cosmology. Now new research led by Durham University, UK, and Australia’s University of Sydney, Western Sydney University and the University of Western Australia, has shown that life could potentially be common throughout the Multiverse, if it exists. The key to this, the researchers say, is dark energy, a mysterious “force” that is accelerating the expansion of the Universe. Scientists say that current theories of the origin of the Universe predict much more dark energy in our Universe than is observed. Adding larger amounts would cause such a rapid expansion that it would dilute matter Read More ›

From Lisa Grossman at ScienceNews: Seven of those exoplanets are in the TRAPPIST-1 system, one of the most exciting families of planets astronomers have discovered to date. At least three TRAPPIST-1 planets might host liquid water on their surface, making them top spots to look for signs of life (SN: 12/23/17, p. 25). Yet those planets shouldn’t exist. Astronomers calculated that the small star’s preplanet disk shouldn’t have contained enough rocky material to make even one Earth-sized orb, says astrophysicist Elisa Quintana of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Yet the disk whipped up seven. TRAPPIST-1 is just one of the latest in a long line of rule breakers. Other systems host odd characters not seen in our Read More ›

From Marina Koren at the Atlantic: As recently as January of this year, Tarter suggested a rebranding for seti. “Seti is not the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. We can’t define intelligence, and we sure as hell don’t know how to detect it remotely,” she said. Seti “is searching for evidence of someone else’s technology. We use technology as a proxy for intelligence.” Call it sett instead, she said. NASA does not, we are told, recognize SETI as part of astrobiology. Call that prejudice if you like, or call it an unwillingness to be seen spending tax money on a search for little green men when attested phenomena out there await exploration. … With the House bill on the table, Tarter says Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: One of the problems that have long intrigued experts in cosmology is how to detect possible extraterrestrial signals. Are we really looking in the right direction? Maybe not, according to the study that the neuropsychologists Gabriel de la Torre and Manuel García, from the University of Cádiz, publish in the journal Acta Astronautica. “When we think of other intelligent beings, we tend to see them from our perceptive and conscience sieve; however we are limited by our sui generis vision of the world, and it’s hard for us to admit it,” says De la Torre, who prefers to avoid the terms ‘extraterrestrial’ or aliens by its Hollywood connotations and use another more generic, as ‘non-terrestrial’. “What we are Read More ›

From astrophysicist Ethan Siegel at Forbes: Again, Earth is our only laboratory for this, but let’s be optimistic in the absence of evidence, and assume there’s a 1-in-1,000 chance that a world that starts with a primitive, replicating, information-encoding strand of life can lead to something like the Cambrian explosion. That gives us 10,000 worlds in the Milky Way teeming with diverse, multicellular, highly differentiated forms of life. Given the distance between the stars, that means there’s likely another planet where this has occurred just a few hundred light years away. … The uncertainties here are huge, and any number that you can pick is as ill-motivated as any other. Someday in the future, we’ll have the capability of performing Read More ›

From Allan Adamson at Tech Times: Astronomers have been hunting for phosphorus in the universe because of the role it plays in life on Earth. If the element is lacking in other parts of the cosmos, it could be difficult for alien life to exist. A new study presented at the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science meeting now suggests that life as we know it is more unusual than previously thought because the universe substantially lacks phosphorus. More. But then who needs phosphorus when we have imagination?!

From Lisa Grossman at Science News, on an effort to update the Drake Equation: If the civilization lasted less than 100,000 years — the time it takes light to cross the galaxy — then the odds of the signals reaching Earth while the civilization is still broadcasting are vanishingly small, the researchers report February 27 at arXiv.org. Humans, for example, have been transmitting radio waves for only about 80 years, so our radio waves cover less than 0.001 percent of the Milky Way. “If the civilization emitted from the other side of the galaxy, when the signal arrives here, the civilization will already be gone,” says Grimaldi, of the Federal Polytechnical School of Lausanne in Switzerland.More. The space aliens have Read More ›

From NASA: The Twin Study propelled NASA into the genomics era of space travel. It was a ground-breaking study comparing what happened to astronaut Scott Kelly, in space, to his identical twin brother, Mark, who remained on Earth. The perfect nature versus nurture study was born. The Twins Study brought ten research teams from around the country together to accomplish one goal: discover what happens to the human body after spending one year in space. NASA has a grasp on what happens to the body after the standard-duration six-month missions aboard the International Space Station, but Scott Kelly’s one-year mission is a stepping stone to a three-year mission to Mars. More. So what did they find? Among other things, After Read More ›

From Maria Temming at Science News: If alien microbes crash-land on Earth, they may get a warm welcome. When people were asked how they would react to the discovery of extraterrestrial microbial life, they give generally positive responses, researchers reported at a news conference February 16 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. This suggests that if microbial life is found on Mars, Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus (SN: 5/13/17, p. 6) or elsewhere in the solar system, “we’ll take the news rather well,” said Michael Varnum, a social psychologist at Arizona State University in Tempe. What’s more, the tone of news reports announcing potential evidence for intelligent aliens suggests people would welcome that news, Read More ›

Yes, “astrovirology” is a new term, for the possibility that viruses originated in space. Suzan Mazur wonders at Oscillations: If viruses originated on Earth—which is NASA astrovirology chief Ken Stedman’s “best guess”—just why do we need a new field called astrovirology? That’s a very good question. If viruses originated elsewhere than Earth, the history of the origin of life would become very complex indeed. In her interview with Stedman, she asks about a recent article (paywall US$50.00) in Astrobiology, a publication with curious connections with NASA: My question is why didn’t you publish your astrovirology article independently? Why publish in a journal that despite its disclaimer is seen as a propaganda arm of NASA and “the Darwinian government”—as the late, Read More ›

Religions and Extraterrestrial Life: How Will We Deal With It? by David A. Weintraub: In the twenty-first century, the debate about life on other worlds is quickly changing from the realm of speculation to the domain of hard science. Within a few years, as a consequence of the rapid discovery by astronomers of planets around other stars, astronomers very likely will have discovered clear evidence of life beyond the Earth. Such a discovery of extraterrestrial life will change everything. Knowing the answer as to whether humanity has company in the universe will trigger one of the greatest intellectual revolutions in history, not the least of which will be a challenge for at least some terrestrial religions. Which religions will handle Read More ›

Good project. Hope differs from hype by more than a single letter. From Brian Wang at ScienceNews: Babak Saif and Lee Feinberg at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, have shown for the first time that they can dynamically detect subatomic- or picometer-sized distortions — changes that are far smaller than an atom — across a five-foot segmented telescope mirror and its support structure. Collaborating with Perry Greenfield at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, the team now plans to use a next-generation tool and thermal test chamber to further refine their measurements. … To find life, these observatories would have to gather and focus enough light to distinguish the planet’s light from that of its much Read More ›