Assessing Panspermia Hypothesis by Microorganisms Collected from The High Altitude Atmosphere

Abstract

Microbiology at the high altitude atmosphere i s i m p o r t a n t f o r a s s e s s i n g t h e c h a n c e s and limits of microbial transfe r from the earth to extraterrestrial bodies. Among the microorganisms isolate d from the highatmospheric samples, spore formers and vegetative Deinococci were highly resistant against harsh environment at high altitude. From limited knowledge available to date, it is suggested that terrestrial microorganisms may have had chances to be ejected and transferred to outer space. Survival of these organisms during their space travel and proliferation on other planets might be also feasible. Directed Panspermia from Earth to extraterrestrial bodies is discussed on the basis of findings reported in literatures. ©2009 Jpn. Soc. Biol. Sci.

Isolation Of A Diatom Frustule Fragment From The Lower Stratosphere (22–27km) - Evidence For A Cosmic Origin

“…As stated in a previous section, both bacteria and fungi have been isolated from the lower as well as the upper stratosphere (Greene et al, 1964;Yang et al, 2009). Since many inorganic particles can morphologically resemble bacteria or clumps of bacteria it is often difficult without additional evidence to be absolutely certain that a bacteria-like particle found in the stratosphere is a biological entity rather than a mineral particle.…”

“…There have been a number of investigations showing that viable bacteria and fungi exist in both the lower (Griffin, 2004, 2008, Smith et al, 2010) and the upper stratosphere over the altitude range 20km-60km (Imshenetsky et al,1978, Bigg, 1984Greene et al, 1964;Harris et al, 2002;Wainwright et al, 2003Wainwright et al, ,2004Yang et al, 2008Yang et al, ,2009Shivaji et al, 2009). Since a number of different methodological approaches have been used in these studies, and a range of different microbes have been isolated from the stratosphere using a variety of approaches, there is little doubt that microbes do exist in the stratosphere.…”

Tanpopo: Astrobiology Exposure and Micrometeoroid Capture Experiments— Proposed Experiments at the Exposure Facility of ISS-JEM

“…By Akihiko YAMAGISHI 1) , Shin-ichi YOKOBORI 1) , Hirofumi HASHIMOTO 2) , Hajime YANO 2) , Masumi HIGASHIDE 3) , Makoto TABATA 2) , Eiichi IMAI 4) , Hikaru YABUTA 5) , Kensei KOBAYASHI 6) and Hideyuki KAWAI 7)…”

“…According to this hypothesis, life has migrated between the Earth and other extra terrestrial objects [3][4][5] . The finding of life-like structure in a meteorite originated from Mars recalled the hypothesis.…”

“…The microbe-sampling experiments could be extended to lower Earth orbit: ISS. It is also important to test the possibility whether the microbes ejected from the Earth may survive during the voyage to other planets [3][4][5]13) . We also propose the survival test of microbes on ISS.…”