[meteorite-list] Panspermia, Reverse Panspermia & Life In Space

[Chris Peterson]

There are really two kinds of panspermia. The extreme sort, which is hard to 
take seriously, is that life was seeded on Earth from deep space. The other, 
which is hard _not_ to take seriously, is that life (or its building blocks) 
might have been distributed within the Solar System by impacts.

It is somewhat relevant to sample return missions or manned missions because 
if (for example) there is life on Mars that is related to life on Earth, it 
is much more likely to be pathogenic than any life that developed 
independently.

Chris

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Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mr EMan" <mstreman53 at yahoo.com>
To: "metlist" <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Friday, June 05, 2009 2:18 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Panspermia, Reverse Panspermia & Life In Space



Totally agree with Mark's quote below about Panspermia. As to reverse 
contamination-- studies so far suggest launching and landing temperatures 
are sufficiently low that neither process sterilizes the cargo: Mars to 
Earth or Earth to Mars transport.

Elton
--- On Fri, 6/5/09, Mark Ford <mark.ford at ssl.gb.com> wrote:


<< To be honest this whole Panspermia concept, has become a
bit of a religion in some circles, how is it more likely that
 Earth was seeded by alien life than that that the Earth started life by
 itself? Earth is perfect for life, all the ingredients are or where 
present, we haven't seen anywhere else in the universe like earth for long
 enough, so it seems sensible to assume it all started right here...
 in a galaxy not so very far away..

 Mark>>