Extraterrestrial (microbial) life found in meteorite

I for one have no doubt that the universe is absolutely teeming with life. However, those who live in fear of the unknown and cling desperately to tradition and superstition will no doubt dismiss this finding and even come up with some farfetched explanation, such as the following:

a. This meteorite may have come from earth. It is possible that a long time ago, a meteor that struck the earth sent pieces of the earth drifting into space, only to crash back to the planet millions of years later in what is our present time.

reply to post by HumansEh


I was thinking about your thread earlier.
Haha

Originally posted by JayinAR
reply to post by HumansEh

 

I was thinking about your thread earlier.
Haha

The house never loses!

Would be fantastic news if proven and hopefully will open more debate. The Red Rain is very intriguing indeed. Will keep an eye on this one.

reply to post by Phage


Explanation: I agree that the way this information has come out is in no way credible and doesnt pass the peer review limitations at all.

Very poor form from the author of the article in the Journal of Cosmology and the journal itself.

However I have an issue with ...

"Move along folks. There's nothing to see here," wrote Rosie Redfield, a microbiologist at the University of British Columbia, saying that it is easy to find structures in nature that appear similar to bacteria.

And since life is EXTREMELY invasive and bacteria has been on earth for a very long time ... billions of years ... and has been found at extreme depths in the rocks of the earth.

What rocks on earth have NOT ever been contaminated with life!

She is a microbiologist ... not a geologist!

And she doesn't even qualify her comment at all ... and that article RELIES on her 'expertise' ... and thats a logical fallacy.

Please show me one rock from earth that has zero life contamination.

If there isn't any ... then we have nothing to properly compare with from earth ... and must look elesewhere for a comparison.

Maybe luna rocks would be better to compare with?

Personal Disclsoure: Her comment is just as unqualified as this Journals article. BOTH must be rejected!

All I would ask is that people treat this neutrally until which time it can be judged on the merits of the data. Is it possible this is bogus? Absolutely! But at this point it is far too early to just assume so based on this man's nature-of-association with a publication that people may not like, for whatever reason.

Originally posted by JayinAR
reply to post by OccamsRazor04

 

Excuse me?
No, conflict of interest does not necessitate wrong doing. I didn't use the term.

Yes you did. Pauligirl used it first, then you replied and used it. Do you need me to quote you using the term conflict?

I like to "throw around" the term character assassination? Why? Because I have used it twice?

Yes, twice in 2 pages, and misused the term both times.

Originally posted by JayinAR
All I would ask is that people treat this neutrally until which time it can be judged on the merits of the data. Is it possible this is bogus? Absolutely! But at this point it is far too early to just assume so based on this man's nature-of-association with a publication that people may not like, for whatever reason.

The data should be treated neutrally, the conclusions presented here should be met with scorn and contempt. Even if true, the way it has been handled should STILL be met with scorn and contempt. It's the equivalent of a cop shooting a man for murder. Regardless of whether it turns out the guy really was a murderer, there is a process we use and any attempt to subvert that process must be met with severe criticism.

reply to post by avatar01


Farfetched?

Yet the story of another meteorite that originated from Mars is not farfetched?

Life on Earth is self-evident. We have yet to prove that life exists on other planets in our solar system. I am not doubting that life exists outside of Earth, and I am not afraid to learn that it does.

But it is possible that the meteorite in question has a terrestrial origin.

Originally posted by butcherguy
reply to post by avatar01

 

Farfetched?

Yet the story of another meteorite that originated from Mars is not farfetched?

Life on Earth is self-evident. We have yet to prove that life exists on other planets in our solar system. I am not doubting that life exists outside of Earth, and I am not afraid to learn that it does.

But it is possible that the meteorite in question has a terrestrial origin.

If it came from Earth it did so a long time ago and would have been the result of a huge event to throw up a piece of rock out of our atmosphere and out of the pull of Earths gravity. Then it could have made its way halfway around the cosmos before coming back this way. Also the rock itself could possibly be traced to an origin point on the planet if it was distinct enough and from that a possible dating could be deduced.

Whether it is true or not it still is great exercise for the brain and possibly a very intriguing puzzle for mankind.

I would love to hear from any geologists here as to what circumstances could possibly propel a piece of rock from the Earth out into space, it would take a phenomenal amount of energy I assume. If it dated from the very beginnings of the formation of the Earth it opens up another can of worms about possible life forms existing at that inhospitable time in the early history of the cosmos.

reply to post by HumansEh


Asteroid impacts, of which we know several have occured. The rock almost certainly could not have left Earth's gravitational field only to find its way back millions of years later carrying life from another solar system.

I guarantee you life came here from somewhere else. Not from "meteor sperm" either.

I say this because it is highly unlikely that this is the only place (in the entire Infinite Universe) life has developed into 20 million species and counting. Thats like saying there is no people outside your house when you never been outside the front door.

Johnny Appleseed

reply to post by HumansEh


I think that if the meteorite is of terrestrial origin, the fossils were there when it left the Earth. I am not an expert in orbital mechanics, but I think it is possible for a chunk to be thrown into orbit and have that chunk acted on by another gravitational force or collision(a larger meteor) later, causing it to fall back to Earth.

Originally posted by intrptr
I guarantee you life came here from somewhere else. Not from "meteor sperm" either.

I say this because it is highly unlikely that this is the only place (in the entire Infinite Universe) life has developed into 20 million species and counting. Thats like saying there is no people outside your house when you never been outside the front door.

Johnny Appleseed

Terrible anology. At one point, there was only 1 family, and every place they looked they saw no one else. They then colonised the world. We have checked the nearby neighborhoods, nobody home. So your anology actually supports the fact that we ARE alone. Your guarantees don't mean much either. Guarantees only have power when something is offered to support it.

Originally posted by butcherguy
reply to post by HumansEh

 

I think that if the meteorite is of terrestrial origin, the fossils were there when it left the Earth. I am not an expert in orbital mechanics, but I think it is possible for a chunk to be thrown into orbit and have that chunk acted on by another gravitational force or collision(a larger meteor) later, causing it to fall back to Earth.

Yes, you are correct. Whether this is of terrestrial origin or not should be the first thing determined, and it apparently wasn't. Terrible science.

Originally posted by OccamsRazor04
reply to post by HumansEh

 

Asteroid impacts, of which we know several have occured. The rock almost certainly could not have left Earth's gravitational field only to find its way back millions of years later carrying life from another solar system.

What time frame do you think the last asteroid impact that could propel debris out of our gravitational hold took place in?
Would existing fossils from Earth fit in with that time frame?

And yes the possibility of a 'Cosmic Hitchiker' is quite remote isn't it.

reply to post by Phage

You can leave the 'character assassination' to me, Phage.

Chandra Wickramasinghe is a senile old man, the failure of whose life's work has turned his mind.

He used to be the protégé of Sir Fred Hoyle, once Britain's Astronomer Royal. Not many ATS members know that he Hoyle and he were the originators of the Panspermia hypothesis, somewhere back in, I think, the 1970s. Hoyle, who moonlighted as a science-fiction writer, was into Life Among The Stars. He was also a notorious backer of wrong horses; for example, he clung to the steady-state model of cosmology long after it had been proved wrong by observation and thrown out of the academy, and made himself so obnoxious on the subject that colleagues would refuse to speak to him.

Wickramasinghe and his mentor made even bigger laughing-stocks of themselves in the Eighties, trying to convince the scientific world that the fossils of Archaeopteryx were a hoax. Two astronomers trying to teach palaentologists to suck eggs; it must have been fun to watch...

The pair of them lurched ever nearer the fringe, till finally Hoyle died and Wickramasinghe went right over the edge. Thanks to his association with Hoyle and the quality of his early work, he still gets respect among a certain segment of British academia – which is why an entire new 'department' – in reality a one-man show with an impressive list of 'honorary' and 'visiting' colleagues – was created for him at the University of Buckingham after Cardiff University finally sacked him a few years ago.

In his native Sri Lanka, where genuinely renowned scientists are rarer than hens' teeth, Wickramasinghe can do no wrong. There was a spate of UFO hysteria there just before Christmas, and the local media wheeled him out again to pontificate on lights in the sky, UFOs and the rest. So now the old coot's found a meteorite fallen on his home country that just happens to 'prove' his pet hypothesis. What a crock!

Originally posted by HumansEh

Originally posted by OccamsRazor04
reply to post by HumansEh

 

Asteroid impacts, of which we know several have occured. The rock almost certainly could not have left Earth's gravitational field only to find its way back millions of years later carrying life from another solar system.

What time frame do you think the last asteroid impact that could propel debris out of our gravitational hold took place in?
Would existing fossils from Earth fit in with that time frame?

And yes the possibility of a 'Cosmic Hitchiker' is quite remote isn't it.

There have been several ELE in the past 500 or so million years.

reply to post by OccamsRazor04

Guarantees only have power when something is offered to support it.

Whats the alternative? Life just happened? You got no proof of that either.

Life is the difference. Its not on the periodic chart. It is here, but not from here.

Oh, and how else does life spread other than "dividing"?

But thats Okay. Now, don't let me find you spouting about ETs on another thread...

Originally posted by intrptr
reply to post by OccamsRazor04

 

Guarantees only have power when something is offered to support it.

Whats the alternative? Life just happened? You got no proof of that either.

Life is the difference. Its not on the periodic chart. It is here, but not from here.

Oh, and how else does life spread other than "dividing"?

But thats Okay. Now, don't let me find you spouting about ETs on another thread...

Unlike you I stick to the facts, so I have never and will never spout off about ETs on any thread. The evidence is life is on Earth. I am open to evidence for anything, but right now life has been found nowhere else. As to how it began here, well we have conjecture, not evidence for that. You are the one making the claim life came from elsewhere, yet you offer no evidence, we have to just trust you. No thanks.

Back on topic, I will be interested to see if any actual scientists look at this and what happens then.

reply to post by OccamsRazor04

but right now life has been found nowhere else.

And thats your "evidence"?

We haven't been to even one other star yet. How can you say that? Oh, thats right, you didn't say that there is no life elsewhere or that it evolved here or that it came here.


Wait... what are you saying?