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Published on: January 21, 2014
Cometary panspermia and origin of life?
N Chandra Wickramasinghe1, Dayal T Wickramasinghe2, Edward J Steele3
1University of Buckingham, Buckingham, United Kingdom; Centre for Astrobiology, University of Ruhuna, Matara, Sri Lanka; Institute for the Study of Panspermia and Astrobiology, Gifu, Japan; National Institute of Fundamental Studies, Kandy, Sri Lanka.
Abstract:
A range of astronomical observations are shown to be in accord with the theory of cometary panspermia. This theory posits that comets harbor a viable biological component in the form of bacteria and viruses that led to origin and evolution of life on Earth. The data includes (1) infrared, visual and ultraviolet spectra of interstellar dust, (2) infrared spectra of the dust released from comet Halley in 1986, (3) infrared spectra of comet Hale-Bopp in 1997, (4) near and mid-infrared spectra of comet Tempel I in 2005, (5) the discovery of an amino acid and degradation products attributable to biology in the material recovered from the Stardust Mission in 2009, (6) jets from comet Lovejoy showing both a sugar and Ethyl alcohol and finally, (7) a diverse set of data that has emerged from the Rosetta mission. The conjunction of all the available data points to cometary biology and interstellar panspermia as being inevitable.
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