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Panspermia - "Seeds Everywhere"
Panspermia - "Seeds Everywhere"
Panspermia - "Seeds Everywhere"
Panspermia- “seeds
everywhere”
Theory of origin of life
Cometary and meteoritic matter falling on Earth may have provided the
prebiotic material needed for life. The water in the oceans may have had a
similar origin, since the high D/H ratio found on Earth and Mars far exceeds tha
of the Sun and giant planets, and is only matched by that of the comets.
MD. QUSSEN AKHTAR
CSIR-UGC(NET) –JRF, CIMAP-JNU Ph. D
Biotechnology Division,
CENTRAL INSTITUTE OF MEDICINAL AND
AROMATIC PLANTS (CIMAP),
PICNIC SPOT ROAD, KUKRAIL LUCKNOW,
U.P. 226015
email:
qussen10@yahoo.co.in
qussen10@gmail.com
site: http://sites.google.com/site/qussen10/
http://meteorites.asu.edu/images/education/allend
e-big.jpg
“The face on Mars”
What is Life?
• Common features:
– reacts to environment
– metabolism (draws
energy from
environment)
– Reproduction
• Life on Earth
– Based on complex
chemistry of carbon
– Fundamental building
blocks are amino
acids
– Small compounds
containing C, O, H, N, S
– It seems unlikely that
life can be based on
significantly different
chemistry
Life on Earth
• When did life arise on
Earth?
• How did life arise on Earth?
• What are the necessities of
life?
Green Bank (or
Drake)
Estimated number Equation
of technological
civilizations present in the Milky
Way galaxy is given by
Is Life on Earth…
a) A miracle?
b) An accident?
Origin of Life on Earth c) More-or-less inevitable
given the laws of physics
• Did it come from and chemistry, and suitable
somewhere else? conditions?
– Panspermia Principle of Mediocrity:
• Or did it form here on There’s nothing special
Earth about the astronomical,
geological, physical and
– Chemical reactions to chemical circumstances on
create building blocks of Earth; most likely nothing
Could life have migrated to Earth?
Venus, Earth, Mars have exchanged tons of rock (blasted into orbit
by impacts)
Some microbes can survive many years in space...
Theory that life came from beyond Earth is called “Panspermia” -
“life everywhere”
Panspermia- “seeds everywhere”
ü Life came from space on comets
ü Hydrocarbons, amino acids, water(s) and bacteria
ü September 28, 1969 Murchison, Australia
ü Meteorite shower fell
v Analysis determined it was carbon rich
Ø Organic compounds
systems
The theory states that after they arrive safely from
space, they became protein from amino acids and
eventually life (if not already). They would then grow
and reproduce, possibly in a warm pond/ocean or
Life from Meteors: Panspermia
“In the early twentieth century, a Swedish chemist named
Svente Arrhenius developed a theory called panspermia.
Arrhenius' theory accounted for life's origins by simply stating
that life did not originate on the Earth, but originated elsewhere
in the universe. He believed that cellular life reached the Earth
hiding inside a meteor which hit the Earth long ago. Newly
uncovered evidence suggests that this might be possible.”
The “seeding” of life on earth from an extraterrestrial
source (arrhenius, 1907)
How it was proposed to work:
• Small organisms are present in the upper atmosphere of a
“source” planet.
• Small organisms could be blown out of the atmosphere and
into space by the pressure of sunlight.
• For this to work, organisms must be the size of bacteria,
spores, or viruses.
• Alternatively, an impact could have thrown organisms (maybe
inside rocks) into space.
Is the “source” planet a nearby planet in our solar system (like mars or venus)
or a planet in another solar system?
Manfred Eigen whose work has elucidated the age of the genetic
code, felt that life cannot have originated either much before the
conditions for its initiation were there, and not much later. This
suggests that panspermia is not the source.
e began once, on Mars, and came to Earth in Martian meteorites. May or may not still
on Mars (amino acids or bacteria)
e began once, on Earth, and was propagated to Mars, where it possibly established itself
or bacteria)
e originated on both Earth and Mars, but in spite of the exchange of rocks and dust, no
fer of viable organisms has occurred
e originated on neither Earth nor Mars, but somewhere else entirely, such as a comet,
er’s moon Europa, Venus, or body outside the Solar System altogether. It came to earth,
aps Mars too, via some sort of Panspermia mechanism (a.a. or bacteria)
e has originated on earth alone and has not (yet) successfully colonized another planet.
is, and always was, lifeless
There may be no pressing need for panspermia: Enzio Gallori pointed out
that DNA nucleotides can be assembled on clays and that adhesion to clay
surfaces can lead to preservation of DNA strands as well as their replication.
compounds
CO 1-20 C2H2 0.1
CO2 3-20 C2H6 0.3
H2CO 0.1-1 NH3 0.6
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d level ● Third level ● Third level ● Third level
Runoff channels
Outflow Channels
Life on Mars? Viking Lander
• Giovanni Schiaparelli (1877) – Experiments
observed “canali” (channels) on
Martian surface
(1976)
ü Search for bacteria-like
• Interpreted by Percival Lowell forms of life
üResults inconclusive at
(and others) as irrigation canals
– a sign of intelligent life best
• Lowell built a large observatory
near Flagstaff, AZ
(Incidentally, this enabled C.
Tombaugh to find Pluto in
1930)
• Speculation became more and
more fanciful
– A desert world with a planet-
wide irrigation system to
carry water from the polar
ice caps?
– Lots of sci-fi, including H.G.
Wells, Bradbury, …
Jupiter’s Galilean Moons
Click to edit Ma
Titan
Second
Titan is the only moon in thelevel
solar
● Third level
system known to have an
atmosphere ● Fourth lev
● Fifth lev
Life on Titan would be
methane-based
Europa
Europa might have
liquid water oceans
under the surface
Life?
Bacterial spores
Original cell replicates its genetic material. One copy grows a tough coating. Outer
cell disintegrates, releasing spore which is now protected against a variety of
traumas, including extremes of heat and cold, and an absence of nutrients, water,
or air.
Panspermia, continued