This looks to be a huge story, the first evidence of extraterrestrial life, if it holds up. I would remind readers that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence“. This needs to be confirmed by others in the science community before it can be taken seriously.
This is from a recent meteorite find in December 2012. A large fire ball was seen by a large number of people in Sri Lanka on December 29th 2012, during that episode a large meteorite disintegrated and fell to Earth in the village of Araganwila which is few miles away from the city of Polonnaruwa.
Look at what the electron microscope shows of a sample purported to be from the meteorite:
It looks convincing, and the paper says: “Contamination is excluded by the circumstance that the elemental abundances within the structures match closely with those of the surrounding matrix.“, but I remain skeptical of the claim.
At first I thought this was somebody mistaking a Tektite (Earthly origin ejecta from impact that makes it into space briefly) but this meteorite found in Sri Lanka does not appear to fit that category, being a chondrite. Further, this is a (supposedly) peer reviewed paper in the Journal of Cosmology, just published, but looking at the Journal of Cosmology, I have some doubts about its veracity.
I asked our resident solar expert Dr. Leif Svalgaard what he thought of it:
Credible? Yes and No. Several good scientists that I know personally have published in the Journal. There is also a good deal of junk. The kind of stuff that gets trotted out at WUWT by our resident [commenters] asking us to ‘open our minds’. So, there is both. It is difficult for a layman to sort the wheat from the abundant chaff.
Wickramasinghe is a credible scientist, student and long-time collaborator of Fred Hoyle. I assume you know Hoyle’s theory of continuous creation of matter at just the right rate to make the Universe expand as we observe it in order to keep the density constant. Hoyle coined the ‘derogatory’ [from his point of view] term The Big Bang. Hoyle’s greatest achievement was to co-author the epoch-making paper that explained in quantitative detail how all elements heavier than Lithium are formed in our universe [in supernovae explosions].
So, the jury is still out on the journal, though the scientist gets a +1.
According to the paper:
…the parent body of the Polonnaruwa meteorite would have had most of its interior porous volume filled with water, volatile organics and possibly viable living cells. A remarkable coincidence that should be noted is that within several days of the meteorite fall, an extensive region around the site of the fall experienced an episode of red rain. The red rain analysed at the MRI in Colombo has been shown to contain red biological cells that show viability as well as motility. Preliminary studies from EDX analysis show that these cells are similar to the cells found in the red rain of Kerala that fell in 2001, cells that have not yet been identified with any known terrestrial organism (Louis and Kumar, 2006; Gangappa et al, 2010). Abnormally high abundances of As and Ag in the Sri Lankan red rain cells have been provisionally reported, thus favouring a non-terrestrial habitat, possibly connected with a cometary/asteroidal body, the fragmentation of which led to the Polonnaruwa meteorite fall (Samaranayake and Wickramasinghe, 2012).
The paper is (h/t to Willis Eschenbach):
FOSSIL DIATOMS IN A NEW CARBONACEOUS METEORITE
N. C. Wickramasinghe*1, J. Wallis2, D.H. Wallis1 and Anil Samaranayake+3
1Buckingham Centre for Astrobiology, University of Buckingham, Buckingham, UK
2School of Mathematics, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK
3Medical Research Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka
ABSTRACT
We report the discovery for the first time of diatom frustules in a carbonaceous meteorite that fell in the North Central Province of Sri Lanka on 29 December 2012. Contamination is excluded by the circumstance that the elemental abundances within the structures match closely with those of the surrounding matrix. There is also evidence of structures morphologically similar to red rain cells that may have contributed to the episode of red rain that followed within days of the meteorite fall. The new data on “fossil” diatoms provide strong evidence to support the theory of cometary panspermia.
The full paper is here:
Source from the University of Buckingham website: http://www.buckingham.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Polonnaruwa-meteorite.pdf
Here is a news story on the paper, including an interview with Wickramasinghe
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… Preliminary studies from EDX analysis show that these cells are similar to the cells found in the red rain of Kerala that fell in 2001, cells that have not yet been identified with any known terrestrial organism…
What BS. Either they have done gene sequencing, then they can say it definitely whether they are terrestrial (and to what other already known organisms they are related), or whether they are unrelated to anything known here on Earth.
AnonyMoose says:
January 15, 2013 at 2:15 pm
the arguments which are based upon a logical civilization don’t necessarily apply to everyone
If the Galaxy is teeming with life there will be such a wide spectrum of motives of so diverse civilizations to cover almost everything one can come up with. So Fermi stands. If the Galaxy is not teeming with life, Fermi still stands as it is clear why nobody has come. The murky area is where there are some, but few, civilizations. Then the spectrum of motives narrows. On the other hand those few civilizations are all way ahead of us [it is too much of a coincidence that in the 12 billion years of existence, a few civilizations would be just at our stage right now], so where are they?
forget to say: Either they have done gene sequencing, … or they have not done it – in which case they are not worthy to be taken seriously.
John Whitman says:
January 15, 2013 at 2:20 pm
I think his paradox presumes that another intelligent life form is social (e.g. forms a civilization) and it presumes other ‘intelligent’ life will have an intelligence like ours and has the same basic interests as ours.
See my reply to AnonyMoose January 15, 2013 at 2:15 pm
PS They claim live critters in the second paper? What kinds of containment protocols have been put in place? Didn’t they ever see “The Andromeda Strain”?
Leif Svalgaard says:
“…so where are they?”
Yes, that is the question, isn’t it?
D Böehm Stealey says:
January 15, 2013 at 2:51 pm
“…so where are they?”
Yes, that is the question, isn’t it?
To me, the conclusion to draw is that the Universe is friendly. Either we are [effectively] alone, so have nobody else to fear. Or if there is somebody out there, they either can’r get to us, or they know about us, but leave us in peace. If they were hostile, we wouldn’t be here, they would. That leaves another question: are we them? [but don’t know it]. Wickramasinghe may think so.
Of course they are “friendly”, whatever that means.
The universe can have two causes: A God or probabilities. Probabilities are so low that there must be a lot of “others”, an infinite number necessarily, and these others have had far more time to evolve than us. Whatever they have become is probably well beyond our imagination. So the answer to the question: “Where are they?” must be: “We don’t know but clearly they do not need to be here.”
It is a researcher who has made numerous bogus claims about alien life in a bogus “journal” reporting on a rock that is contaminated, as pretty much any rock might be, with the ubiquitous fresh water diatoms that are everywhere. The diatoms do make nice proxyindicators for both environment and age. In this case, they seem to indicate the present, and the habitat is … recently warmed!
Ha.
One typical human failing is that we [meaning people in general] tend to think too small. That is especially evident when discussing this subject.
We can’t be alone in the universe [says my belief system]. There are just too many billions of galaxies, with billions of stars in most of them, and too much elapsed time in the universe.
And that is just the visible universe, which may be either a tiny fraction of the whole, or the universe may well be infinite.
If the universe is infinite, then intelligent life must have appeared ipso facto an infinite number of times. If the universe is finite, it is still vastly bigger than the average person suspects. The visible universe is but a tiny part of the whole.
There is a reason that we haven’t encountered other signs of intelligence. At this point we can only speculate about the reason(s). But I’m not speculating. It might sound like crazy talk. ☺
There is something fishy about this or there is a genuine misunderstanding or they can’t see the wood for the trees. They seem to be trying to link algae like cells that cause the “red rain” phenomenon to the fossilized objects believed to have came from comet Encke.
In the News interview above they clearly report that “some of the algae like cells are alive” and others are dead. But in the paper they state
“Again we stress that contamination is decisively ruled out because the structure in the meteorite is deemed to be a fossilized object, and fossils diatoms were not present near the surface of the Earth to contaminate a new fall of meteorites.”
If they have found fossilized objects in an uncontaminated Meteorite, Which is important by itself, why include a speculative link with the “red rain” phenomenon?
Is it possible that these scientists have been pushing the “red rain” phenomenon as having an extraterrestrial origin before this meteorite was found?
“This needs to be confirmed by others in the science community before it can be taken seriously.”
Making an exception in this case, are we?
Leif, “they” have seen Al Gore, and they don’t like us!!!!!!
Bad Astronomy has taken a look, and thinks there has been freshwater contamination.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/01/15/life_in_a_meteorite_claims_by_n_c_wickramasinghe_of_diatoms_in_a_meteorite.html
ferd berple says:
January 15, 2013 at 7:41 am
Climate Ace says:
January 14, 2013 at 9:20 pm
In general, jungles tend to be rather depauperate in large critters of any kind, and therefore especially depauperate of dangerous critters
=============
The most dangerous creatures in the jungle are among the smallest. Most often they attack you on the lower leg, and once they get hold they are almost impossible to stop. They most definitely regard humans as food. Go live in the tropics. It is rare to find someone that doesn’t bare the scars. As a visitor without the immunity developed in childhood you make a fine meal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_ulcer
We concur. I was responding to a common misperception about the nature of jungle fauna posted upstring. Indeed, if we were to use concepts about jungle fauna as a prism for searching for nasty ETs, the best bet would be to start with anything that is either microbial or Anopheles-sized.
D Böehm Stealey says:
January 15, 2013 at 3:27 pm
“We can’t be alone in the universe…”
———————————————————————–
Scientific evidence shows otherwise. If you do the math, which nearly nobody does, rather than hand wave, I think you will numerically conclude that life, any life, is improbable.
As a scientist I advocate doing the math behind the model, AND making observations to confirm or deny the model, which is exactly what Richard Feynman would do.
Promoting Panspermia because you “believe it” to be so is quaint, but it isn’t science.
Professor N. C. Wickramasinghe, the leading author of the paper, does not make it clear that he is “Executive Editor, Astrobiology Cometry Panspermia” at the Journal of Cosmology which published the paper.
This is an illustration of the failings and advantages of on-line journals. An advantage is that claims of new discoveries can be disseminated quickly. A disadvantage is that these claims may not have been peer reviewed, or only reviewed by like-minded peers.
However an over-riding advantage is that, because on-line journals are much more accessible than those controlled by Dutch publishers [ie most scientific journals] poor quality work will be quickly recognised as such.
This is certainly the case here. The paper was published on-line and has within weeks been recognised for the utter rubbish that it is. if the Journal of Cosmology wishes to be known as a serious journal standards will have to be raised.
On Journal of Cosmology: it has had some good articles, for instance from members and associates of the Glasgow team on the origin of life (whose ideas seem to me most promising), but it also has a serious bent towards panspermia and the origin of life elsewhere. The problem with panspermia is that it is currently unscientific: the hypothesis that life did not originate on Earth, but elsewhere, cannot be disproved, i.e. it is unfalsifiable, so, according to a Popperian view of science, non-scientific; it also pushes any research on the origin of life into realms where we have little hope of doing detailed study.
Diatoms on Earth are eukaryotes with chloroplasts, but not primary chloroplasts such as those in plants and algae, which are descended directly from endosymbiotic cyanobacteria; diatoms have secondary chloroplasts, from an endosymbiosis of a red alga (already carrying a cyanobacteria-derived chloroplast) and a eukaryote. The photos in the article show a remarkable resemblance between the claimed extraterrestrial fossil and an existing earthly diatom, and the authors ‘conclude therefore that the identification of fossilised diatoms in the Polonnaruwa meteorite is firmly established and unimpeachable. Since this meteorite is considered to be an extinct cometary fragment, the idea of microbial life carried within comets and the theory of cometary panspermia is thus vindicated.’
Nothing of the sort! The authors’ claim implies that on some other planet (presumably) there was an evolution of life from bacteria- and archaea-like unicellular organisms to various symbioses which produced more complex organisms similar to eukaryotes, and that the fine structure of this particular exemplar of that extraterrestrial evolution (which on Earth took a few billion years) is almost identical to the fine structure of the results of a similar evolution here. That really does strain credulity!
If it looks very much like an earthly diatom, it most probably is one! The question then is, how did it get into this meteorite sample? That’s an interesting question which can be tested scientifically (not anti-Popper-‘vindicated’). If anyone wants (extensive) references, ask.
Answer to how earthly diatoms could get into a meteorite.
Meteorites from the Earth are regarded to exist but were believed by these authors unlikely to ever be recovered:
Gladman, B. J., Burns, J. A., Duncan, M., Lee, P., and Levison, H. F.: The exchange of impact ejecta between terrestrial planets, Science, 271, 1387-1392, 1996. DOI:10.1126/science.271.5254.1387
If any meteorites from the Earth were to be found, it has been deemed likely that some of them would have originated with the Chesapeake Bay impact ~35.5 Ma:
Faucett, P. J., and Boslough, M. B. E.: Climatic effects of an impact-induced equatorial debris ring, J. Geophys. Res. 107 (D15), 4231-4249, 2002. doi:10.1029/2001JD001230.
It is generally known that there are diatomaceous sands in the area surrounding the Chesapeake Bay crater.
Perhaps the most successful mechanism for putting fragments of the Earth into distant orbits that do not return to the Earth’s atmosphere for ~35.5 m.y. is the jetting phase of the impact, wherein ejecta is launched near tangentially to the Earth’s surface “at speeds usually faster than the projectile itself.”:
Melosh H. J.: Impact Cratering – A Geological Process, Oxford Monogr. Geol. Geophys Ser., vol. 11, Oxford University Press, New York, 1989. p.51
So all we have to do now is to find some of these meteorites from the Earth and study them. And in fact I have already found one (sorry, no diatoms):
Griscom D L., In plain sight: the Chesapeake Bay crater ejecta blanket, Solid Earth Discuss., 4, 363—428, 2012, http://www.solid-earth-discuss.net/4/363/2012/sed-4-363-2012.html
Sections 10 and 11 of this paper treat jetting-phase ejecta (which didn’t leave the Earth) and a recovered granite meteorite from the Earth, respectively. The link above displays the abstract and permits downloading the full article. However, if you wish to read it in its entirety, I recommend that you download my reader-friendly version (figures inline with the text) here: http://www.drivehq.com/file/df.aspx/publish/dlgriscom/CBcraterResearch
–Dave
By the way, I disagree with some posters (or one, at least, I admit I skimmed the 160 or so posts a bit) that this topic has no place on WUWT: the blog header includes far more than climate, and what makes this blog so good is the critical and informed thinking and argument; we can and should exercise that in all fields, in science and the rest of life.
Exobiology is a science that at present has nothing concrete to study, except endobiology (that is, life on this planet); it still is a science, if conducted properly. The study of the origin of life on this planet (excluding for methodological reasons panspermia) is an aspect of science that has progressed immensely despite a severe paucity of concrete data in comparison with other fields.
I think it’s interesting to compare these rather arcane fields with current climate ‘science’, which is rich in data, relatively. The thing is, there’s a lively, and at times acerbic, debate in the exobiology and origin of life fields which is conducted excellently, with respect for persons but not ideas, and with proposals of testable hypotheses, and with an awareness that nobody really knows and nothing is uncontrovertibly proved – everyone is working with hypotheses and models, and experimental tests are difficult to do.
I really am sad to have to write climate ‘science’: but the prominent warmists, and many others whose articles I’ve read and who cite IPCC reports as if they were peer-reviewed scientific articles, have lost it in terms of science, which I understand in terms of Popper’s clearly articulated philosophy of science. Just look at another field that grabs your interest, and you’ll find that the scientists are working pretty well: the origin of life is a field that particularly grabs me, and in general I find that the work being done fulfils Enlightenment, and Popperian, standards; there are a few in this broad field (because it inevitably involves other fields such as the reconstruction of the history of life) who seem to be influenced by relativist and post-modernist thinking (which I detest with a passion, and with reason), but still they adhere in the end to the demanding standards of evidence and falsifiability.
Our warmist ‘scientists’, on the other hand, are lost in a relativist and post-modernist morass, viz. ‘The appliance of science’, Mike Hulme The Guardian, Wednesday 14 March 2007
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2007/mar/14/scienceofclimatechange.climatechange
By the way (another), guys and gals, I had seen this quote from Mike Hulme in various climate-sceptical articles and posts, but, being sceptical, I wanted to check if the quote was real, and it took me some time to finally land on the article in the Grauniad (sorry, this is a very Brit in-joke: The Guardian in the pre-computer-setting days of newspapers was famous for its misprints). Let’s all provide findable and reliable references for the things we claim.
I am guessing there is no way of dating the fossil.
Assuming this is not a fraud or some huge misinterpretation of data, the simpler explanation is that this originated from Earth, was ejected into space during some previous impact (65 million years ago?), got picked up at some point, and now has come back home.
I agree. It has to be a meteorite from the Earth.
Meteorites from the Earth are regarded to exist but were believed by these authors that they are unlikely to ever be recovered:
Gladman, B. J., Burns, J. A., Duncan, M., Lee, P., and Levison, H. F.: The exchange of impact ejecta between terrestrial planets, Science, 271, 1387-1392, 1996. DOI:10.1126/science.271.5254.1387
If any meteorites from the Earth were to be found, it has been deemed likely that some of them would have originated with the Chesapeake Bay impact ~35.5 Ma:
Faucett, P. J., and Boslough, M. B. E.: Climatic effects of an impact-induced equatorial debris ring, J. Geophys. Res. 107 (D15), 4231-4249, 2002. doi:10.1029/2001JD001230.
It is generally known that there are diatomaceous sands in the area surrounding the Chesapeake Bay crater.
Perhaps the most successful mechanism for putting fragments of the Earth into distant orbits that do not return to the Earth’s atmosphere for ~35.5 m.y. is the jetting phase of the impact, where ejecta is launched near tangentially to the Earth’s surface “at speeds usually faster than the projectile itself.”:
Melosh H. J.: Impact Cratering – A Geological Process, Oxford Monogr. Geol. Geophys Ser., vol. 11, Oxford University Press, New York, 1989. p.51
So all we have to do now is to find some of these meteorites from the Earth and study them. And in fact I have already found one:
Griscom D L., In plain sight: the Chesapeake Bay crater ejecta blanket, Solid Earth Discuss., 4, 363—428, 2012, http://www.solid-earth-discuss.net/4/363/2012/sed-4-363-2012.html
Sections 10 and 11 of this paper treat jetting-phase ejecta (which didn’t leave the Earth) and a recovered granite meteorite from the Earth, respectively. The link above displays the abstract and permits downloading the full article. However, if you wish to read it in its entirety, I recommend that you download my reader-friendly version (figures inline with the text) here: http://www.drivehq.com/file/df.aspx/publish/dlgriscom/CBcraterResearch
–Dave
Leif S says…
Extraterrestrial life?
Assuming you mean higher life, Fermi’s paradox has three ‘solutions’.
1) we are alone [the first civilization]
2) civilizations don’t live long enough to even start colonizing [blow themselves up]
3) interstellar travel is too hard or dangerous
Each of those have various objections against them.
============================================================
If one limits the solutions to three, when there are many more possible, then perhaps one is indulging in a circular arguement. Life can perhaps evolve in many different forms, perhaps they find ours uninteresting. Perhaps they feel a moral directive not to interfere with a developing civilization, aka, “the prime directive” Perhaps we are not alone, but perhaps more rare then some think, so they have not progressed to the point of traveling vast interstellar distances. Perhaps we are far more common then some think, so they have many other advanced worlds to deal with, you know, “Federations” and what not, and so do not have the time or interest to check out some hicks in a remote corner of the cosmos, when the “rebels” are threatening. It is a big universe with room for far greater imagination then three possible solutions.
Hey SpartanCanuck,
You following up on the spoof angle?
David says:
January 16, 2013 at 6:25 am
Life can perhaps evolve in many different forms, perhaps they find ours uninteresting. Perhaps they feel a moral directive not to interfere with a developing civilization, aka, “the prime directive”
If there are many out there, there will be a large spread in their ‘directives’. It only takes one to be interested. Which is the essence of Fermi’s paradox.
***
John Whitman says:
January 15, 2013 at 10:02 am
Rare => it sounds like an absurd human conceit to me.
***
Not necessarily. I see more & more evidence that our situation for intelligent life development is a “Goldilocks” one — perhaps nearly unique. The types of planetary systems being discovered is supporting this.
Where is the DNA analysis of the “red rain” cells? That would immediately place it in a terrestrial family if they are terrestrial.
What is a diatom? it is a marine alga with a calcified shell evolved to achieve a particular buoyancy in an ocean of particular density and salinity, and to photosynthesise with an atmosphere like ours. If diatoms are riding to earth on comets it must mean there is “another earth” out there – something practically the same as ours. Hmmm..
Even if (a big if) the panspermia idea is proved correct, what is its significance? Very small indeed. So this cell evolved / lived on another planet then travelled here. Just – wow! OK, but that says NOTHING absolutely about how life first evolved. It evolved here and somewhere else as well. What insight does it give about how this first happened. None. It changes nothing at all about the origin of life debate. It is trivial that the universe is full of life, it cannot be otherwise. Even if the conditions for life are so exacting that only 0.000001% of planets have it (and this is unlikely) then there are so many stars and planets that there will still be millions of life supporting planets. (A recent study found that about 1 in 6 of stars have an earth-like planet. So as Fermi asked – “where is everyone”.)
In fact panspermia would merely be a subcategory in a well known evolutionary mechanism, that of “rafting”. Read “the ancestors tale” by Richard Dawkins to learn more about this. Careful palaentological and genetic analysis combined with knowledge of historic plate tectonic and continental movements makes it clear that at certain times, certain animals crossed large oceans. This is most likely due to rafting – a clump of fallen trees from a flood or landslide or something drift out to sea. Some animal find themselves on the raft. They somehow survive a long journey to another continent – and include a male and female. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oceanic_dispersal . Primates have rafted from Africa to both Madagascar and even south America millions of years ago (They first evolved in Africa much later than the separation of either island/continent.).
Kind of curious that this fell in Sri Lanka – the home of Holye and Wikramsinge.