Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Cells, Microbes & Viruses => Topic started by: thedoc on 28/04/2011 17:59:52
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Bacteria can survive accelerations of 400,000g, making it highly likely that bugs could survive an interplanetary crash-landing aboard an asteroid, or even flourish on high-gravity massive planets, new research has revealed.
Read the whole story on our website by clicking here (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/news/news/2243/)
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It's possible, even probable that some did but not all bacteria arrived that way. Some evolved with life here.
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If any
It's possible, even probable that some did but not all bacteria arrived that way. Some evolved with life here.
If any bacteria arrived from space... and were viable, then they would likely be the ancestors of all bacteria, and all life on Earth.
There is just too much similarity in DNA, RNA, Protein, and other structures for bacteria to have originated from two different independent sources. Even Eukaryotes have much in common with Prokaryotes.
However, having bacteria or spores travel through space on a meteorite, land on earth, and then flourish still has many issues.
- Survive the impact or supernova that sent them into space
- Survive in the icy-hot of space near a star with the side of an asteroid facing the sun reaching hundreds of degrees, while the side away from the sun is frozen.
- Survive in the frigid space away from a star, potentially for thousands or millions of years, likely in a frozen state
- Endure the Vacuum of Space
- Endure Cosmic Rays, as well as radioactive decay and DNA degradation
- Endure very hot atmospheric entry
- Impact the planet with the force of an atomic bomb
- Adapt to local food sources (of inorganic origin at the time before life)
On the positive side, many bacteria form spores which are quite inert, and designed to survive hostile environments.
It is a tall order for bacteria to survive in space and seed Earth. But the evolution of the first living organism is also a very complex task.
Earth itself would be formed by the accretion of space debris. And, during the heavy bombardment phase billions of years ago, the planet would have been hit by as many asteroid impacts as the moon. So, even if it was only a 1 in a billion chance that bacteria would have survived to seed Earth. Perhaps that would be enough.
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when i read the title of this thread i thought "que x-files theme tune" but i belive life started as a primordial soup but whether that came from space... who knows
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when i read the title of this thread i thought "que x-files theme tune" but i belive life started as a primordial soup but whether that came from space... who knows
That is a point...
Perhaps "life" could have been transferred to Earth without living organisms, but rather as a group of amino acids and nucleotides derived from living organisms elsewhere.
If crude oil and coal are thought to be derived from living organisms, then do amino acids and nucleotides persist?
Here is an abstract to an article that seem to indicate that amino acids can be isolated from coal.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0016236181900338
Other studies have indicated that proteins can be isolated from demineralized fossils that are millions of years old.
And, thus one can conclude that the basic building blocks of life are very durable, and perhaps could survive a cataclysm and transfer to Earth. If this was the case, then we should be able to find primordial amino acids on Mars.
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