[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]
(meteorobs) Meteor infall & disease
Lew wrote: >>>That's the most interesting reason forgetting into meteor
observing that I've heard so far! Real Agent Mulder stuff. :) Is your
background in biology or epidemiology?<<<
Lew,
Well, it is pretty interesting. Scientific thought on panspermia goes back
at least to Svante Arrhenius (1890?) who computed travel time of a
terrestrial spore flying to Mars on solar winds.
I discovered Arrhenius by reading Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe's
various books on "diseases from space." They went to great lengths to try
to prove a correspondence with meteor infall and influenza outbreaks. I do
not believe they came near to any proof but they sure do write good books.
As far as I can find out, there is very little data on particles collected
at the highest region of the ionosphere. I also don't think that NASA tests
particles they collect at high altitudes for *viruses.* I'm not sure about
bacterial collections.
It is not that all comets have the same constituents and so there is a
possibility given the infinite numbers of comets in the cosmos that some
may carry life.
It is intriguing to read Carl Sagan conjecturing that some comets may be
"skinned over" and warm from radioactive decay processes and may actually
be vessels for vast liquid oceans of H2O.
There have only been about 1000 observed comets in recorded earth history
yet the number of comets is speculated to be numberless. And we know that
each meteor shower (comet debris) tends to have individual characteristics.
So meteor-wise, I think it is feasible that there could be microbial
colonies in space and that over eons the earth may receive fresh charges of
biotic materials.
The earth's passage through sub-visible space dust is little studied.
To close, Fred Hoyle speculates that meteoric contagion is the reason why
humans evolved nostrils that open downwards rather than upwards towards the
sky. Less chance of a micro-meteorite falling in. :-) --Tom A
Follow-Ups: