First images of life from other planets (seriously) * A scientist from NASA published in the Cosmology Journal proof that bacteria were discovered in a meteorite that landed on Earth 200 years ago * A debate about a similar finding regarding bacteria from Mars has not been resolved
The credit for all the images in the record were taken from the Journal of Cosmology, documenting the bacteria found inside the meteorites.
Almost two hundred years ago, at the beginning of the 19th century, two loud explosions were heard in the south of France. Two large black stones, weighing two and four kilograms, landed from the sky near the isolated and pastoral villages. Once word of the crash spread, they did not remain isolated for long. Scientists came to examine the meteorites, and were surprised to find that they contained water. One of them, Yones Jacob Berzelius, wrote that,
"The question arose in my mind: Does this hydrocarbon soil contain fertile soil, or a trace of organic matter? Can we get a hint from it about the presence of organic formations on other stars?"
Today, at the beginning of the 21st century, a positive answer to his question may have been found, and together with it the first evidence of life that came from outer space.
Professor Richard B. Hoover, an expert on carbonaceous meteorites and an astrobiologist in the service of NASA, carefully examined the meteorites he had collected. He broke them open sterilely, so that bacteria and other microorganisms from the air couldn't get in, and scanned the contents using a powerful electron microscope. The chance that bacteria managed to penetrate deep into the meteorites is low, so he should not have found a trace of life in them. But surprisingly, the professor believes that he managed to find the 'fossilized' remains of bacteria that came inside the meteorites from outer space.
What do the aliens look like? They are quite simple, and disappointingly almost identical to the bacteria found in the soil and oceans on Earth's surface. In fact, in many cases they can almost be associated with the species of bacteria on Earth. Others are of a more complex form, which has not yet been discovered on the surface of our planet.
Are these really creatures that lived in the past? If so, then their presence can explain the fact that meteorites of this type also contain a variety of other materials that indicate that biological life existed within them in the past. These include magnetites in unusual configurations, protein amino acids with a significant enantiomeric bias indicating a biological origin, bases similar to DNA (purines and pyrimidines) and more.
The evidence, therefore, is very encouraging, but the scientific community is still suspicious - and rightly so. The bulk of Hoover's research is based on electron microscope images of meteorites, revealing bacteria-like structures. These structures may be the remains of actual bacteria, or they may be dirt and carbonaceous formations that have haphazardly crystallized into eye-catching, life-like shapes. At these sizes it is very difficult to know the truth.
Hoping to investigate the discovery, the cosmology journal in which the research was published called for a hundred experts and more than 5,000 scientists to come and examine the evidence. They were invited to critique the study and offer their impressions and thoughts, which would be published side by side with the original study and the revealing images of the meteorites' contents. This is the way of science: cooperation with the aim of discovering the way the world around us works, while discussing and arguing endlessly. Despite this, it is worth noting that the very fact that the bombastic study was published in a relatively small journal, and not in one of the large and important science journals (Science, Nature) makes many fear that this is nothing more than a public relations exercise, with a bit of science thrown in. It is also worth noting that this is not the first time claims have been made about finding life inside meteorites, which were later disproved.
If the bacteria are indeed approved by the scientific community, and additional studies conducted confirm the discovery, Hoover's discovery and photographs will be included in every life science textbook. The bacteria that came from outer space will provide a heavy reinforcement for the suspicion that the origin of life is not on Earth but on other planets. According to this theory, known as 'panspermia' (seeds all over the world, in Greek), meteorites serve as tiny spaceships that carry bacteria from star to star. From the moment they crash on the planet, the bacteria can get out of the suspended animal state they are in, and start growing and thriving on the new planet. From there on they may evolve into more advanced creatures, such as fungi, algae and multicellular creatures such as humans. According to this theory, the origin of all of us is aliens from outer space. We are all descendants of ancient single-celled astronauts who roamed space for thousands of years until they landed on a planet that provided them with shelter and a place to grow up.
This is the panspermia theory, and if we find it to be true, then outer space will never look desolate to us again. The world will become teeming with life, just waiting for good luck to drop them on the right planet. It happened once. It could happen again.
The editor of the Hidan site adds: In 1996, NASA convened a press conference at the White House with the participation of then-President Bill Clinton and announced Discovery of life in a meteorite originating from Mars. After the discovery, a debate erupted as to whether these are really bacteria or perhaps just natural formations in the rock, a debate that has probably not been decided to this day.
57 תגובות
Friends, the scientists may also be right and there is a creator of the world
At first the scientists said "How can it be that the entire universe was created from nothing?" It doesn't make sense!" Today all those scientists explain that just before the big bang all the energy and matter in the world was concentrated in one point and compressed in such a way that it really makes sense that everything was created from nothing
In general, the more the scientists learn, the closer they get to things that are written in the Torah and have been known for two thousand years... the bottom line is that there is no telling
Only the dead know... But the dead can't tell us...
Thinking person
I am sure that "Yuval" really thinks like that
The response is too silly and seems tailored exactly to the sensitivity of many commenters here.
More likely the commenter is a troll trying to get negative attention and inflame spirits for his own enjoyment.
Maybe it's enough to rattle your brain? What's really funny is that in 2015 there are still people like you who are completely disconnected from reality and believe in imaginary things. Without these "rabbit" scientists as you define it, you wouldn't be able to use the internet at all and write your stupid nonsense.
God is an invention of men on your nose and your anger.
These are "Bang bacteria"!!!! formed from the big bang! Let's hear what other crazy stories the world's "great" scientists will tell us. The great fear of the Spanish scientists who are afraid to declare that the world was created and not created by itself.
Ruby, Mars on its surface is a dead planet that does not allow the existence of life.
Except that with the spaceships that landed there, bacteria arrived, didn't they? (of course not on purpose)
Recommends sending bacteria from Earth to Mars to the glacier area so that they start evolutionary activity and create a denser atmosphere on Mars.
Roy
I'm sorry, but titles like these are suitable for idiosyncratic sites such as Shofar...
It's strange to me that no one bothered to check the Wiki entry about the scientist in question...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_B._Hoover
I would love aliens, however simple they may be, but I don't think this is such a case.
Some corrections:
A. "Panspermia", in literal Greek, is "total insemination". In practice, the concept refers to the existence of life that originates outside the universe. "Exogenesis", on the other hand, is one of many hypotheses covered under the shadow of the "panspermia" theory. The meaning of the word in Greek is "external origin", and the term refers to the hypothesis that life in the Earth originates from living single-celled creatures that arrived outside of it, most likely through meteorites.
B. If indeed it is proven with high probability that bacteria from outside the Earth arrived here, they will not "provide a heavy boost to the suspicion" of the exogenesis theory, but will "provide a significant boost to the theory". This is on the assumption that you do not consider the "insemination" of life from an external source to be a crime.
third. As made clear in the article itself, the evidence, as of now, is very far from convincing. What Prof. Huber found and photographed could be structures of xenobiological bacteria that became hungry, or, as the article stated, "dirt and carbonaceous formations that crystallized randomly." What's more, in the two hundred years that have passed since the fall of the meteorite, in my opinion, the possibility of the infiltration of bacteria originating from the Earth and their development, according to the organic materials that served as a substrate and food for them inside, cannot be ruled out, according to what Prof. Huber found. Until the scientific community has its say, it is too early to make statements.
Obviously there are aliens. We are the aliens.
Now you just have to find your way home.
The problem is that it is not clear whether the house is Mars to the right or Saturn to the left.
I suggest we split up.
So are there aliens or no aliens?
Michael,
Do you mean that the similarity between the bacteria that are described to those on the website is an analogy and not a homology? There is a situation where this is a likely scenario.
In any case, I still believe that there can be cases where there will be mutual fertilization between cosmological bodies as I mentioned. Rabbi of the hidden over the visible...
Thanks for the discussion, we'll wait and see what day will reveal 🙂
Lior:
What a crap!
One possibility is that the universe was bombarded with capsules of spores contained within radiation-tight containers, using the gravitational force of black holes.
Another possibility is that there are asteroids with materials opaque to radiation, and in combination with spores, they constitute the evolution of the universe, when they are found almost everywhere in the universe.
Hanan,
What you raise here are very interesting questions. Why do you think there would be symmetry? There are for example many plants without symmetry here. Like head and limbs, what requires them to be?
Regarding structure, from a physical point of view the shape will be spherical in conditions where there is an advantage to a limited surface area (for example in cold or high salinity conditions) and a structure with extensions in conditions that favor a wide surface area.
In addition, I agree with you that there is what is called convergent evolution and that if the conditions are similar similar forms will arise in different places. For example, wings of birds, insects and bats, all created from different sources, eventually converged to the "solution" of wings. Will this also happen on another planet? interesting.
Amit:
You should only take into account the fact that the panspermia hypothesis does not provide an answer to even one of the problems that bother you.
"Do you find it hard to believe that the conditions on Earth are so unique"?
It can be considered in two ways:
1. So where do you think the conditions were so unique? What is the "uniqueness" that would satisfy you?
2. No one said that the conditions here are unique and in my opinion it is quite possible that life was created in other non-unique places as well, but from that to the conclusion that they also managed to survive a journey of billions of years in the hostile environment of the long distance space.
"There is a missing link"?
And how does panspermia complete this link? The link is simply missing.
"Exchange of rock fragments in the solar system"
What does that matter?!
Obviously, there is an exchange of rock fragments, but how do they transport living creatures in all this cold, vacuum and radiation? We must not forget that in the natural environment where these creatures were created, similar conditions did not prevail, so what in their evolution suited them for such a journey?
The only creatures on earth that can survive strong radiation (but not as strong as in space) are creatures whose genome is fixed and protected against any change by sophisticated repair mechanisms, such creatures cannot be the basis of life on earth because due to their genetic fixation they are a dead end in terms of evolutionary.
You are welcome to read the discussion between me and R. H. on this matter here:
https://www.hayadan.org.il/deade-like-%e2%80%aadodo-1703104/#comment-263915
to R.H.
Life can develop in a similar morphological way even in different places from each other and so also evolutionary development can be similar in different places, provided that the biological niche is similar.
Therefore, there is no obstacle for extraterrestrials to be similar to creatures on Earth and be such that we can recognize them as living creatures - that is, having a symmetrical body, head, limbs, eyes, etc.
Hanan Sabat
http://WWW.EURA.ORG.IL
https://www.hayadan.org.il/images/content3/2011/03/HooverFigure1a.jpg
OK.
mathematical biology,
I answered you in 23 and 19. In any case, you drag the discussion from the article again to the boring story of moldy evolution calculations that have already been exhausted and chewed. It's like you will come up with a thousand and one statistical and probabilistic reasons why it is impossible for me to exist. After all, what is the chance that out of millions of sperm cells and 4 eggs and millions of recombination events my combination will be created? impossible.
For me, the subject of the article, a possible discovery of bacteria in a meteor, is much more fascinating than the discussion you are referring to, so I ended the discussion on it.
R.H-
your reply?
Michael, you are indeed right, the panspermia theory is only a hypothesis.
I think it is reasonable for the following reasons:
* It is hard for me to believe that life in Kdvah is so unique, especially considering the similar past of the nearby bodies.
* The genome: There is a very large missing link as of today. The common denominator that is today the "trunk" of the tree of life is too complex. In my estimation, this is just a branch in a much larger tree.
* The exchange of rock fragments between the elements in the solar system: yes, in my opinion it is a mechanism whose idea is similar to the transmission of seeds by plants, only that the scale is huge both in terms of distance and time periods. Meteorite impacts seem to be rare today, but there were times when they were much more frequent.
Therefore, in my opinion, the "origin of life" is the period of the formation of the planets and it was in the mutual evolution of all the elements in the solar system. What we know as the first organisms on Earth, is not the beginning but an intermediate stage that exists in my opinion in many places and leads to different products. The organic materials are even more ancient.
Don't forget that a large part of the geological past of Venus, for example, is "erased" today, as is the case with the Moon from the period preceding its collision with Earth:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_impact_hypothesis.
Again, only conjectures, no proofs...
Have a good day 🙂
Amit:
Your first sentences say it all: "If the panspermia theory is true"
Panspermia is not a job offer! This is a theory that, until this moment, has no basis! You cannot base any conclusions on it and what needs to be checked right now is if there is anything in it at all.
If DNA similar to ours is found in some meteorite, my first hypothesis would be that it is contamination from Earth, and only after this possibility is ruled out will I be ready to see it as confirmation of the panspermia hypothesis.
In general - fossils are very weak confirmation of panspermia. Real confirmation can only come from living beings, since one of the arguments against panspermia is that living things will not survive the journey in space.
Imagine that a meteorite that hits the earth splashes the grave of the Lubavitcher Rebbe into space, and after five billion years these bones will be found by some intelligent being from another planet. Would this be confirmation of the claim that (their) followers came from another planet?
The Panzeramia theories are ratings bullshit.
Any explanation of where this life evolved would be worse than the explanation that it evolved in the ocean on the chemically rich Earth.
It could also be that the bacteria exist in many places in the universe, but only in our solar system, on Earth, did those bacteria manage to develop into a highly complex organism.
This discovery may (or may not) be a milestone in understanding the development of life in the universe, but this does not mean that life also exists outside the earth (if the definition of 'life' is a complex organism).
Hanan
RH explained to you well - even if there is life outside the earth, it does not mean that it will be similar to the life on earth.
In the event that they are discovered - there is a high chance that they will be different from us even at the DNA level, and in my opinion, if they are discovered - first of all the bacteria in them will be discovered.
Why doesn't anyone ask the most important question in the world
From where
exactly
They arrived
The bacteria
these!??!!!!!…..
What is a remnant of a world that has life???? Mars maybe? Or somewhere else? The answer fascinates me
Hanan,
See what variety exists on Earth from trilobites through dinosaurs to plants, mammals and insects. At the molecular level they are all almost identical, but morphologically they are completely different. So in my opinion, even if life on another planet is based on DNA, the chances of it being similar to something here are low.
Michael,
To the best of my understanding, if the theory of panspermia is correct, then the origin of life is probably already in the interstellar cloud from which the solar system was formed and the building blocks themselves such as the amino acids, even earlier because they are apparently also common outside the solar system.
If this is the case, then the fossilized bacteria should be roughly composed of the same building blocks with various variations that we already know today, such as the replacement of phosphorus with arsenic, slight changes in the nucleotides themselves and in the amino acids.
Of course, the greater the genetic "distance" between them and the conditions in which they survive are different, then the greater the variation. Let's not forget that apparently there is "mutual fertilization" throughout the history of the solar system since Venus, Mars and Earth were at least very similar in the early stages of formation.
That's why I wouldn't be surprised if even when bacteria or maybe even simple multi-cells are found in the atmosphere of Venus for example, they won't be significantly different from "extremophiles" that we know in the A.D. At most we might expand the evolutionary tree that we know.
It is also possible that "evolutionary jumps" in the Earth such as the Cambrian explosion were also the result of "invasion of species" from nearby planets where evolution may have been faster due to different conditions.
In any case, the traditional approach that analyzes the development of life on earth as if it were an isolated planet, must be refreshed...
The panspermia theory is gaining more and more traction. It should be noted that every year about 150 tons of meteors fall into the Earth, so there is a probability that the distribution of microorganisms from an extraterrestrial source continues all the time.
If the panspermia theory is correct, then life in the universe (at least in our galactic neighborhood), is based on the same hereditary material - DNA and RNA.
In such a situation, plants and animals, which may develop on other planets in our galactic neighborhood (up to a distance of 50 light years from our Sun), may appear to have a similar morphology and similar genetics to those on Earth. Hence, there is a similar probability that they are similar to the ones on the above - or that we are similar to them...
Hanan Sabat
http://WWW.EURA.ORG.IL
In short, if they want to prove something like this, they should send a sterilized spacecraft into space, hunt for a meteor and test it in space to see if it contains bacteria that won't wait 200 years like in this case.
The test must be done in the coming years because soon the entire solar system will be contaminated with bacteria produced on Earth
good week
Yehuda Sabdarmish
Amit:
A fossil is usually an imprint of the creature's structure that petrified in stone and has no trace of the creature itself.
There are cases of animals whose tissues are preserved in resin, but it is not fossilized and that is not what we are talking about here.
The term DNA refers to highly defined chemical compounds and a priori has nothing to do with how genetic information is carried between generations of alien beings. If the nucleotides are different - it is not DNA
By the way, you will certainly not be surprised to find out that in the article mentioned by "Biology" in response 11, the number 10^10 does not appear even once and that there is no mention of "functional sites" there at all.
"Biology" also tries to obscure the fact that the conclusions of the authors of the article are the opposite of his:
In conclusion, we suggest that functional proteins are sufficiently common in protein sequence space (roughly 1 in 10^11) that they may be discovered by entirely stochastic means, such as presumably operated when proteins were first used by living organisms
Michael,
The fact that these are fossils does not necessarily contradict the possibility that it will be possible to extract genetic material from them. Extracting genetic material does not necessarily mean genomic sequencing, but even information about the bases of the genetic material can be significant information. It is not necessary that these nucleotides be identical to those present here.
Roy, very interesting article,
But just a small question: why did you feel the need to add (seriously)?
Is it so hard to believe that there could be microbial life elsewhere in the universe?
Don't all the recent discoveries in astrobiology strengthen the statistical possibilities of this?
I mention here some articles on the subject (one of them yours):
Discovery of bacteria that live on arsenic instead of phosphorus, discoveries of bacteria that thrive in extreme conditions (extremophiles), discoveries of planets outside the solar system including planets in the life-supporting zone (Goldilocks Zone), discovery of the building blocks of life in space, in comets and other planets and moons, etc. …
Are all these studies not "serious"?
mathematical biology,
The figure is approximately for each cell, prokaryotic as eukaryotic and cells in multicellular production. Again, look at the article I added (the numbers are already in the abstract).
It's amazing how no one reads things carefully.
Fossils were found (which may or may not be of living creatures). Why did you suddenly start talking about DNA?
And in relation to mathematical (formerly arithmetic) biology:
He is simply throwing sand in his eyes and beyond misunderstanding the probability he is simply trying to mislead through false claims.
Read for example here:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090827123210.htm
I am qouting:
Remarkably, the new research, recently published in Current Biology, shows that these early estimates were spot on - in total, we all carry 100-200 new mutations in our DNA. This is equivalent to one mutation in every 15 to 30 million nucleotides
kishkush mekushkash
tolaaim? Betoch meteorite? ma atem yeladim bagan? mima hem hitkaymu milyonay shnim bachalal? me-ahavh? mai-le aim hayu medabrim al nevagim…mayla, od nitan aich-shehu lhavin, aval tolayim?….kishkush-mekushkash
R.H-
I am indeed only talking about mutations that pass to the next generation. Do you have any data regarding multicellularity such as reptiles?
computational biology,
What is "mutational births"? As mentioned in every replication, after all the corrections and proofreading mechanisms, there are between 10-100 new mutations per cell or if you want a fertilized egg, i.e. a birth. Moreover, during life every production accumulates mutations at this rate in all its cells. When they happen in the gametes they will also be inherited. You are also different from your parents (before all the mixing that was done in the miuses that increase the difference by tens of meters) in about the number of the aforementioned mutations.
If your calculation was correct, there would never have been genetic diseases in human history.
Regarding source? Look at the article I attached earlier and similar articles about Mutations rate.
Dreams in panspermia
While the statistics require the existence of life on other planets, still the seas are necessarily a very rare phenomenon in the universe. In view of the low number of meteorites that reach Israel, it is extremely improbable that a meteorite from a life-bearing planet will collide with our planet, and even more so in modern times.
I'm talking about mutational births in reptiles. Not about mutations in every DNA replication. After all, there are correction and proofreading mechanisms. The most reasonable assumption I've seen is one in a hundred thousand mutational births in many developed cells. Do you have a source to the contrary? That would be interesting.
mathematical biology,
Your assumption A is wrong. The mutation rate is about 1 in 10 to the eighth power. That is, in each division of a cell containing 10 to the power of 9, there will be about 10 mutations in the daughter cells relative to the mother cell. We have not yet talked about meiotic recombination, hot spots, leading elements and other seed in Bishin.
See for example:
http://www.genetics.org/cgi/content/full/148/4/1667
And now go out and correct your calculations
If the bacterium uses the same DNA, how can it be proven that it is from abroad?
The models are broken... but actually it's understandable, right?
A bit of a strange story. We would have expected that if the NASA people were indeed convinced of the above-mentioned interpretation of the discovery, a press conference would have been held according to the best NASA tradition (see the case of the bacteria discovered in Lake Arsen a few months ago) where they would have announced the discovery in front of all the media. The article itself was written by a large number of researchers who examined the issue from several angles and would have been published, as Roy rightly points out, in broad-view journals such as Science or Nature. Immediately there would also be a media frenzy at least as bad as the one that occurred after Craig Venter created an artificial bacterium.
Instead we have here a single authored article in a narrowly focused journal that is certainly not suited to publishing a discovery on such a scale. And in terms of communication, on Google News it appears on about three sites, one of which is the Jerusalem Post.
Something here doesn't work out.
A serious problem in the evolution of mammals and I would be happy if someone would solve it-
Evolutionary models tell us that a new gene appears once every million years or so (who wants to expand) hence, in a hundred million years, 100 new genes were created, on average.
And now for empirical data:
A) Mutational birth in multi-cells such as reptiles, appears approximately one in 5^10 births (as opposed to bacteria)
b) A functional site appears approximately once every 10^10 sequences (it's not even a whole gene but a single site)-
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6829/abs/410715a0.html
c) A primitive genome consists of about a billion bases (9^10) (the human genome has 3 billion)
Hence the chance that a new functional site will be created, twice the chance that a mutational birth will be created, twice the chance that the mutation will fall in the exact place in the genome on the same gradually developing gene = one in 24^10 births, a new functional site will appear in many cells.
Even if we assume a population of a billion items (let's say reptiles that record becoming mammals) multiplying at the rate of one birth per year per organism. After a million years we will only have enough to cover 15x10 mutations. This means that the rate at which evolution worked was a billion times faster than expected. And if only 100 genes were renewed in the transition From reptiles to mammals (probably even more) it's already a chance of one in a billion to the power of 100. Impossible and we'll need 100^1000000000 parallel experiments (impossible considering the fact that there are only 20^10 stars). And we can still give up a few orders of magnitude. It won't change much.
Someone picks up the gauntlet?
I looked at the pictures in the article and skimmed... I'm still not convinced. It's similar, but it doesn't look like proof yet.
Greetings friends,
Ami Bachar
Wow... it took me a few seconds to digest the title
To my father and Roy. Thank you for your response. I downloaded the problematic image below and changed the caption accordingly. I uploaded a picture from the website Roy referred to.
The upload was done quickly in the morning and I didn't close all the corners.
my father
To Anat:
To the best of my knowledge, this is definitely evolutionary possible. What has been covered to date is not yet the tip of the iceberg of single-celled organisms.
Beyond that, the algorithms I know for finding a common ancestor based on sequence homology are far from perfect.
What do you mean "ancestor"? He is not alone! There are a large number of ancestors when you go down to the low resolutions and that's without taking into account vertical sequence transfer...
The more one studies the "tree of life" it is much more than simple splitting of branches: even in modern man they found Neanderthal sequences
The meteorite landed 200 years ago!
This is certainly enough time for it to become contaminated with bacteria from the Bible
Evolutionarily impossible.
Today, researchers know how to map and associate all microorganisms to genetic families with an ancestor that evolved from a primitive state 3.5 billion years ago.
If there was a bombardment of astro-microorganisms, there should be hundreds of genetic families here without a primitive common ancestor.
Also 3 billion years of today would have been saved from evolution as prokaryotes.
In what condition were the bacteria discovered? In the form of spores?
Is there a way to extract DNA and sequence it?
The picture you put is the picture of the previous meteorite... from Mars
For more photos, you should go to the original article itself (access is free) at
http://journalofcosmology.com/Life100.html
I guess it will take years to confirm or disprove this, but if it's true, it's absolutely amazing!