Detecting microbiology in the upper atmosphere: relative-velocity filtered sampling

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to re-open from a practical perspective the question of the extent in altitude of the Earth's biosphere. We make a number of different suggestions for how searches for biological material could be conducted in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere, colloquially referred to as the ignoreosphere due to its lack of investigation in the meteorological community compared to other regions. Relatively recent technological advances such as CubeSats in Very Low Earth Orbit or more standard approaches such as the rocket borne MAGIC meteoric smoke particle sampler, are shown as potentially viable for sampling biological material in the ignoreosphere. The issue of contamination is discussed and a potential solution to the problem is proposed by the means of a new detector design which filters for particles based on their size and relative-velocity to the detector.