PLEASE NOTE:
*
SIR FRED HOYLE (1915 - 2001)
Professor Sir Fred Hoyle, Britain's best-known and most
controversial astronomer, cosmologist and science author has
died. Sir Fred,
who contributed to a number of issues and debates on CCNet, was
known for
his opposition to the Big Bang theory and his critical views on
Darwinism.
Moreover, the cometary resesarch by Fred Hoyle (and Chandra
Wickramasinghe)
have also been extremely instrumental in the development of
astrobiology and
scientific neo-catastrophism far back in the mid 70s. Fred's
quintessentially British eccentricity and his courageous
opposition to a
number of mainstream paradigms will always remain an inspiration
for people
interested in science in general and researchers in particular. I
hope that
Fred's path-breaking influence on the development of cosmic
catastrophism
will be described and outlined ino greater detail at some time.
Benny J Peiser
---------------
SIR FRED HOYLE DIES
>From BBC News Online, 22 August 2001
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1503000/1503721.stm
'Big bang' astronomer dies
Sir Fred challenged the belief the cosmos was caused by an
explosion
The English astronomer who coined the term "Big Bang"
to describe an
academic theory on the creation of the cosmos, has died at the
age of 86.
Despite popularising the theory by giving it a name, Professor
Sir Fred
Hoyle challenged the belief that the cosmos was caused by a huge
explosion
12,000 million years ago.
He advocated the "steady state" theory - that the
cosmos had no beginning
but new galaxies were formed as others moved apart.
Sir Fred also rejected Darwin's theory of evolution, putting
forward the
so-called Panspermia Theory, which suggests that life, or the
building
blocks of life, could be carried to planets by comets or drifting
interstellar dust particles.
Sir Fred wrote A For Andromeda, which became a BBC-TV series
He believed it had all been arranged by a super-intelligent
civilisation who
wished to seed our planet.
Sir Fred used this theory as the inspiration for one of his many
science-fiction novels, The Black Cloud.
Published in 1957, it described an intelligent cloud of cosmic
dust sapping
the Sun of solar energy to create a second Ice Age on Earth.
In 1962, Sir Fred wrote A For Andromeda, which became a BBC-TV
series, and
his play for children, Rockets In Ursa Major, opened in the West
End.
Star gazing
Born at Bingley in the West Riding of Yorkshire to wool merchant
parents, he
could navigate by the stars at the age of 10 and often stayed up
all night
gazing through his telescope.
Sir Fred was educated at Bingley grammar school and Emmanuel
College,
Cambridge, where he studied mathematics.
In 1939, he was elected a fellow of St John's College, Cambridge,
and
married Barbara Clark.
They had a son and a daughter.
Conducted research
During World War II, Sir Fred conducted research for the
Admiralty .
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1957 and knighted
in 1972.
Sir Fred founded the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge, where
he was
Plumian Professor of Astronomy from 1958 until 1972.
Copyright 2001, BBC
=============
PROFESSOR SIR FRED HOYLE (1915 - 2001)
>From The Daily Telegraph, 22 August 2001
http://www.dailytelegraph.co.uk/dt?ac=003864597403343&rtmo=VrM8krsK&atmo=rrr
rrrrq&pg=/01/8/22/db01.html
PROFESSOR SIR FRED HOYLE, who has died aged 86, was Britain's
best-known
astronomer and (until Stephen Hawking's work became generally
known)
physicist, as well as a much-admired writer of science fiction;
he was also
an outrageous mischief-maker who took a delight in enraging his
academic
colleagues.
He and his close associate, Prof Chandra Wickramasinghe, head of
mathematics
at University College, Wales, used to make other scientists so
angry that
some even wrote a special sub-program for their word processors
which, by
pressing a single key, caused the words "Contrary to the
views of Hoyle and
Wickramasinghe . . . " to appear on the screen.
The H & W keys were pressed liberally in January 1990, when
the two men
published an article in the journal Nature claiming that sunspots
caused
'flu epidemics. Their conclusion, which infuriated medical
scientists, was
based on their rigidly held belief that space is full of viruses
that cause
not only 'flu but Aids and Legionnaire's disease as well. Storms
on the
Sun's surface (indicated by sunspots) were supposed to drive
these viruses
into the Earth's atmosphere, whereupon diseases spread.
Still greater fury arose from their claim that Darwin's theory of
evolution
by natural selection was wrong, and that evolution occurred
because mutating
life forms continually fall from space. Nor, Hoyle thought, was
this an
accident. It was deliberately arranged long ago by a
super-intelligent
civilisation who wished to "seed" our planet.
To establish this case, they made claims that outraged their
critics still
further. The accusation that caused the most anger was that
Archaeopteryx,
one of the most significant pieces of evidence for natural
selection, was a
fake.
Archaeopteryx was a creature, half reptile, half bird, that lived
about 60
million years ago. The fossil of this feathered reptile, one of
the prides
of the British Museum, showed that the creature was in the
process of
evolving from one species to another. Hoyle and Wickramasinghe
rejected this
inconvenient evidence by claiming that its feathers were actually
made of
concrete and were surreptitiously put there in 1861 by its
discoverer, Carl
Haeberlein.
Their book Archaeopteryx, the Primordial Bird: A Case of Fossil
Forgery
(1986) was reviewed with unprecedented savagery in the New
Scientist by the
Reading University zoologist Beverly Halstead:
"This book is couched in such intemperate language and
contains such
demonstrable falsehoods, as well as hardly imaginable calumnies
of persons
unable to defend themselves, that it is exceedingly difficult not
to fall
into the trap of exploding into an emotional tirade. ts main
thesis is
patently ludicrous and can be proved to be false . . . We must
ask the
question: what is this all about? This is the unsavoury aspect,
which makes
this one of the most despicable pieces of writing it has been my
misfortune
ever to read.
"It displays utter contempt for minimal standards of
scholarship - the book
seems to portray a hatred of Charles Darwin and a most involved
and twisted
mentality towards zoologists. This libellous nonsense will remain
for a long
time a stain on the reputations of both authors."
Dr Tom Kemp, curator of the University Museum at Oxford, added:
"Certainly
the claim that Archaeopteryx is a fake should be investigated.
But the
investigation should be done by those who actually understand
fossils, not a
couple of people who exhibit nothing more than a Gargantuan
conceit that
they are clever enough to solve other people's problems for them,
when they
do not even begin to recognise their nature and complexity."
Hoyle himself denied writing anything objectionable, but
conceded: "We may
have included a few mild sarcasms." The most puzzling aspect
of these
disputes was that Hoyle made many genuine and significant
contributions to
physics and astronomy. These included monumental examinations of
the
modelling of the structure of stars, nucleosynthesis, accretion
theories,
cosmology, and theories of star formation and planet
condensation.
The most important was his discovery in 1958, with the American
physicist
William Fowler, of the way that the heavy chemical elements that
fill our
bodies, such as oxygen, carbon and iron, were forged in the
nuclear furnaces
of giant stars which later exploded and from whose relics the
solar system
was born. In short, we are literally made of stardust. But this
epochal
discovery was strangely rewarded. Fowler won a Nobel prize for
it, but
Hoyle, to his justifiable annoyance, did not.
Until the end of his life, Hoyle championed the "steady
state" theory of the
universe which maintained that the cosmos had no beginning. This
was despite
increasing evidence, amounting in the view of many to proof, that
the cosmos
began in a Big Bang some 12,000 million years ago. (It was Hoyle
himself
who, mockingly, coined the term "Big Bang". But the
phrase stuck.) In 1992,
when the American George Smoot found tell-tale ripples in the
fabric of the
cosmos, Hoyle refused to accept it. "I have an aesthetic
bias against the
Big Bang," he admitted.
He also challenged the evidence of the radio astronomer Sir
Martin Ryle, who
in the 1960s had found similar, if less conclusive, evidence of
cosmic
origins. Barbara Gamow, the wife of the pro-Big Bang astronomer
George
Gamow, was inspired to describe their dispute in verse:
"Your years of toil,"
Said Ryle to Hoyle,
"Are wasted years, believe me,
The steady state
Is out of date
Unless my eyes deceive me,
"My telescope
Has dashed your hope;
Your tenets are refuted.
Let me be terse:
Our universe
Grows daily more diluted!"
Said Hoyle, "You quote
Lemaitre, I note,
And Gamow, well, forget them!
That errant gang
And their Big Bang -
Why aid them and abet them?
"You see, my friend,
It has no end
And there was no beginning.
As Bondi, Gold,
And I will hold
Until our hair is thinning!"
In 1985, when Halley's Comet visited the Earth, Hoyle and
Wickramasinghe's
theory of space viruses gave them the chance to start another
furious
quarrel. They accused an American astronomer, J Mayo Greenberg,
of
plagiarism.
Greenberg developed a theory that space contains
"pre-organic" material
which Hoyle and Wickramasinghe said was an unacknowledged copy of
their own
theory. "We must congratulate him on his startling
accuracy," they said
slyly. "These two men are constantly making these stupid
accusations against
me," Greenberg retorted. "I think they have never
forgiven me for pointing
out some years ago at a public meeting that they had made an
elementary
scientific error."
Hoyle was a masterly science fiction writer. One of his finest
novels, The
Black Cloud, published in 1957, described a mysterious cloud of
cosmic dust
which approached the solar system and parked around the Sun,
blocking light
and creating a temporary Ice Age. It turned out that the cloud
was
intelligent and using solar energy to replenish itself. The plot
closely
mirrored Hoyle's contempt for politicians and his ideas about a
cosmic
super-intelligence.
Equally frightening was his A for Andromeda (1962), which became
a
television series, in which radio instructions were received from
aliens,
telling humans how to build an all-powerful and destructive
machine. He also
wrote a children's play, Rockets in Ursa Major, which in 1962 ran
in the
West End, and a libretto, The Alchemy of Love.
He wrote many other works of fiction and non-fiction including
(with his son
Geoffrey) Common Sense and Nuclear Energy (1979). In this he made
a
convincing case for nuclear power. Ryle, still smarting from the
cosmological dispute, attacked the book bitterly, and a furious
correspondence ensued. Hoyle, in his autobiography Home is Where
The Wind
Blows (1994), remarked cryptically that Ryle lacked his own
"sense of
humour".
Fred Hoyle was born on June 24 1915, at Bingley in the West
Riding of
Yorkshire. He was educated at Bingley Grammar School and Emmanuel
College,
Cambridge, where he studied Mathematics. In 1939, he was elected
a fellow of
St John's College, Cambridge. He conducted research for the
Admiralty during
the Second World War.
Hoyle received numerous scientific prizes, honorary degrees and
professorships. His many other books included Frontiers of
Astronomy (1955),
Man and Materialism (1956), Star Formation (1963), Galaxies,
Nuclei and
Quasars (1965), The Relation of Physics and Cosmology (1973), Ten
Faces of
the Universe (1977), On Stonehenge (1977) and The Cosmogony of
the Solar
System (1978).
Hoyle was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1957 and
knighted in
1972. He served as president of the Royal Astronomical Society
from 1971-3.
He held visiting professorships at numerous British and American
universities, including the California Institute of Technology
(in both
astrophysics and astronomy) and Cornell University, where he was
Professor-at-Large. He founded the Institute of Astronomy at
Cambridge,
where he was Plumian Professor of Astronomy from 1958 until 1972.
In 1997,
he was awarded the Crafoord Prize, designed to honour work in
fields
ineligible for Nobel Prizes, by the Royal Swedish Academy of
Sciences.
He married, in 1939, Barbara Clark. They had a son and a
daughter.
© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2001.
=============
CCNet-ESSAY: ON COSMIC IMPACTS AND THE CAUSE OF ICE-AGES
>From CCNet, 12 July 1999
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/ccc/ce120799.html
ON THE CAUSE OF ICE-AGES
By Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe
"The renewal of ice-age
conditions would render a
large fraction of the world's
major food-growing
areas inoperable, and so would
inevitably lead to the
extinction of most of the present
human population.
Since bolide impacts cannot be
called up to order, we
must look to a sustained
greenhouse effect to
maintain the present advantageous
world climate.
This implies the ability to inject
effective
greenhouse gases into the
atmosphere, the opposite of
what environmentalists are
erroneously advocating."
1. The Greenhouse Effect
The greenhouse effect raises the Earth's temperature by about
40oC
above what it would otherwise have been. Without the greenhouse
effect
the Earth would be locked into a permanent ice-age. This fact
gives the
lie to those renegade scientists, who in their anxiety to get
their
hands into the public purse, are seeking to persuade the public
that the
greenhouse effect is a bad thing greatly to be feared. The
reverse is
true. The greenhouse effect is an exceedingly good thing, without
which
those of us who happen to live in Britain would be buried under
several
hundreds of metres of ice.
Water vapour and carbon dioxide are the main greenhouse gases.
Carbon
dioxide produces essentially the whole of its effect through
absorption
at infrared wavelengths from about 13.5mm to 17.5mm. Because the
blocking by carbon dioxide over this interval is large, the band
having
steeply-falling wings, additions of carbon dioxide have only a
second-order influence on the greenhouse effect and are
inconsequential
compared to the major factors which control the Earth's
climate. The
blocking effect of water vapour rises all the way from 17.5mm to
almost
100mm.
The wavelength 13.5mm is important in two respects. In the energy
distribution of radiation emitted at ground and sea-level it
marks the
halfway point, one-half of the energy being at wavelengths
shorter than
13.5mm and one-half at wavelengths longer. It also marks a
division in
the effectiveness of the blocking of greenhouse gases. Shortward
of
13.5mm the blocking is comparatively weak, longward of 13.5mm it
is
strong, excepting for a partial window from 17.5mm to about
20mm.
Shortward of 13.5mm there is a broad weak absorption from water
vapour
with its minimum in the region of 10mm, together with narrow
bands from
03 and CH4. Of these, some current fuss is being made about
CH4. But
blocking by methane is somewhat shortward of 8mm, which is so far
out
on the short wavelength tail of the Earth's reradiated spectrum
as also
to be of no great consequence. Thus the Planck maximum for a
reradiated
spectrum of, say, an effective temperature 290K is at 17.6mm with
respect to energy, and at 12.7mm with respect to maximum photon
emission. Thus methane makes its contribution in a region of the
reradiated spectrum where there is only 10 percent of the energy,
for
which reason fluctuations in atmospheric methane can produce only
minor
effects, like those produced by fluctuations of CO2. The
gas that can
produce major effects, and towards which one must therefore look
for an
understanding of large shifts of the Earth's climate, is water
vapour.
Without the greenhouse effect the Earth's mean temperature,
averaged
with respect to latitude, between day and night and between land
and
sea, is given by the formula
T= [1.37 x 106 (1-A)/ac]l/4,
where 1.37 x 106erg cm-2 s-1 is the solar energy flux outside the
Earth, A is an averaged value for the Earth's albedo, c is the
velocity
of light, and a is the radiation density constant, equal to 7.565
x
10-15 erg cm-3deg-4. Thus for an albedo of 0.4 one would have
245K,
very cold indeed.
It is known from model calculations of stellar atmospheres that
the
situation becomes complex and difficult when opacity sources are
highly
wavelength dependent, as they are for the terrestrial greenhouse
effect. The same must arise here so that it seems desirable to
seek an
approximation with the virtue of physical rectitude rather than
to set
up a supposedly accurate computation in which approximations of
uncertain physical validity are nevertheless made in the end.
Owing to
the fortunate circumstance that the wavelength 13.5mm has the
special
properties described above, such a useful approximation lies
immediately to hand. Suppose the half of the reradiated energy
longward
of 13.5mm to be completely blocked by the heavy opacity of the
greenhouse gases and suppose the half shortward of 13.5mm to be
completely free to escape. Then it is easy to see that the
greenhouse
effect must raise the Earth's mean temperature by 21/4 above what
it
would otherwise be, about 292K instead of 245K, a result agreeing
very
well with experience. One can see that the weak blocking which
actually
takes place shortward of 13.5mm is approximately compensated by
the
partial window from 17.5mm to 20mm. With a first approximation
that is
evidently close to the truth it is possible to calculate the
effects of
changing individual greenhouse gases as fluctuations from this
first
approximation, thereby keeping close contact with physical
reality.
The above remarks concerning the opacity of water vapour refers
to a
so-called standard atmosphere which is taken to contain 1 cm cm-2
of
precipitable water. Reducing the water content appreciably to
only a
few millimetres of precipitable water weakens the greenhouse,
dropping
the Earth's mean temperature (for the same A) to about 280K,
which
corresponds closely to what is required for ice-age
conditions. The
conclusion is therefore that reducing the average water content
of the
atmosphere to about a third of its present-day value, while
maintaining
the albedo, would produce an ice-age.
2. Ice-age Conditions
Ice-age conditions were dry, dusty and cold. The great deposits
of
loess, wind-blown soil, in E. Europe and China, imply a climate
that
was dusty in the lower atmosphere, a situation implying a low
precipitation rate. Low precipitation is not a handicap to the
accumulation of large glaciers, which will grow even at annual
precipitation rates as little as a few centimetres per year,
provided
the temperature is low enough to prevent summer melting.
During the ice-ages the whole Earth was cooled, including the
tropics.
This is proved by glaciers extending down to about 10,000 feet on
tropical mountains, mountains which at present do not hold
glaciers,
such as the mountains on the island of Hawaii. The need for the
whole
Earth to be appreciably cooled disposes of astronomical theories
of the
cause of ice-ages, in particular of the Milankovitch theory of
small
oscillations of the tilt of the Earth's rotation axis to the
plane of
the ecliptic, and of small oscillations in the eccentricity of
the
Earth's orbit. Neither of these effects produces any change in
the
amount of solar energy incident on the Earth and so could not
lead to
widespread cooling. Oscillations of tilt merely produce slight
latitude
variations in the incidence of solar energy, which are in any
case much
smaller than the transport in latitude of heat by atmospheric
storms and
ocean currents. Indeed the transport of oceanic heat towards the
poles
gives a far larger effect than would easily buffer slight
latitude
variations of insolation. Oscillations in eccentricity of the
Earth's
orbit produce small shifts of solar energy between one
geographical
hemisphere and the other, and so should tend to cool one
hemisphere and
warm the other. But ice-ages occur contemporaneously in both
hemispheres, not alternatively, a disproof that was already
well-understood more than half a century ago. Claims in favour of
the
astronomical theory, made from numerical computer studies, say
more
about the work of computer studies than they do about ice-ages.
If we were to imagine such an atmospheric state being brought
about
today, evaporation from the relatively warm surface layers of the
ocean
would quickly resupply water vapour to a typical amount of 1 cm
of
precipitable water per cm2 and the cooling due to a reduced
greenhouse
effect would quickly be gone. Thus it is the heat of the ocean
which
saves us from the possibility of an immediate onset of ice-age
conditions. Reckoning the heat of the ocean as being the energy
content
above freezing point, which can be thought of as available heat,
almost
all is contained in a surface layer with depth no greater than a
few
hundred metres, the amount being equivalent to a supply of
sunlight over
a time interval of a few years, say 3 to 5 years. It is because
the
ocean has this back storage of heat that we do not drop almost
immediately into an ice-age.
In distant geological periods the heat storage in the oceans was
considerably greater than it is at present. Today the ocean
bottom
waters are close to freezing, whereas only 50 million years ago
the
bottom temperature was about 15'C and the available oceanic heat
was
then equivalent to a 50 year supply of sunlight. The difference
has
been caused by drifting continents, especially by the positioning
of
Antarctica and Greenland at or close to the poles. Melt water
from
arctic glaciers has gradually filled the lower ocean with water
close
to freezing, greatly reducing the margin of safety against
ice-age
conditions developing. This is why the past million years has
been
essentially a continuing ice-age, broken occasionally by
short-lived
interglacials. It is also why those who have engaged in lurid
talk over
an enhanced greenhouse effect raising the Earth's temperature by
a
degree or two should be seen as both demented and dangerous. The
problem for the present swollen human species is of a drift back
into
an ice-age, not away from an ice-age. Manifestly, we need all the
greenhouse we can get, even to the extent of the British Isles
becoming
good for the growing of vines.
The present-day situation is best seen as one of neutral
equilibrium
unlike an ice-age which is a position of stable equilibrium. The
present-day situation is one in which over relatively short
intervals
the world climate stays the way it is, but over longer intervals
can be
subject to drift. Looking through climatic records for the recent
millennium the drift over a century or two is by 1-2oC. Drift
from the
present-day down by 10o C into an ice-age requires an excess of
about
ten downward steps over upward steps, say each step of 1o C. With
a
century between steps, random shifts would bring on the next
ice-age in
an interval of about 10,000 years, the typical length of an
interglacial. Without some artificial means of giving positive
feedback
to the climate, such an eventual drift into ice-age conditions
appears
inevitable.
All this is on the assumption of a fixed albedo, a point which
now
requires consideration.
3. The Albedo
The remarkable feature of the Earth's albedo is that atmospheric
water
does not lift A close to unity. If even a very small fraction of
even a
very dry atmosphere were to condense into tiny ice crystals, this
would happen. The mass exclusion coefficient, through the
scattering
back into space of sunlight, produced by dielectric crystals with
radii
of a few tenths of a micrometre, is about 3000 cm2 g-1 . Thus a
condensation of only 0.1 percent of the water in a very dry
atmosphere
with only 1 mm of precipitable would yet contribute about 0.3 to
A.
Essentially no water must be condensed into ice crystals if A is
to be
appreciably less than unity. Otherwise the Earth would appear
from the
outside as an intensely bright white planet with an albedo even
higher
than Venus, while below the haze of ice crystals it would be
exceedingly cold at ground-level.
The saving grace is that ice crystals do not form in
supersaturated
water vapour except at very low temperatures, below say -50oC.
For the
Earth's emission into space of radiation at wavelengths longer
than
20mm we can think of a photosphere at which the optical depth out
into
space is of order unity. If only radiation were involved in
determining
the water vapour temperature at this photosphere the temperature
would
be of order 290 t -1/4 where t was the optical depth from ground
level
up to the photosphere, suitably averaged at wavelengths longer
than
20mm. In a typical atmosphere t would be about 19, leading to a
photospheric temperature for water vapour (and hence for
surrounding
air) of as little as 163K, i.e. -110oC, far below that needed for
ice
crystal formation. The circumstance that ice crystals do not form
profusely except under special conditions in Antarctica shows
that
calculating for radiation only cannot be correct. A convective
transport of energy from ground-level to the water-vapour
photosphere is
required. This cannot be carried by air movements but must come
from
the upward transport of the latent heat of condensation of the
water
vapour itself. To keep the photospheric water vapour temperature
above
-50oC, and so to prevent ice crystal formation, the transport of
water
vapour must be such as would lead to an annual precipitation rate
of
about 50 cm. For comparison, the present-day world-wide average
of the
precipitation rate is about 80 cm of rain, sufficient to prevent
ice
crystal formation, but not by a wide margin.
Let the world climate drift downward, however, sufficiently for
the
surface layers of the ocean to cool to the point where an annual
average rainfall of 50 cm cannot be maintained and the consequent
formation of an atmospheric haze of ice crystals would plunge the
Earth
immediately back into an ice-age.
4. Emergence from an Ice-age
The cooling of the ocean over the past 50 million years
eventually made
an ice-age the norm of the Earth's climate, as it has been
throughout
most of the Pleistocene, with brief changes only during
interglacials
lasting for times of about 10,000 years or less. Left to itself,
it is
hard to see how anything internal to the Earth could ever break
the
stable grip of an ice-age. Thus to understand the cause of
interglacials we must look to catastrophic events. The impact of
a
comet-sized object into a major ocean appears essential to the
ending
of an ice-age. An object of mass 1016g would have sufficient
energy to
throw up some 1020g of water into the stratosphere, immediately
creating a powerful greenhouse effect as the water spread around
the
world to give some 10 g of precipitable water per cm2. Such a
greenhouse effect lasting for some months, and at a lesser level
for
several years, would produce a sufficient warming of the surface
waters
of the ocean to jerk the Earth almost discontinuously out of a
long
drawn-out ice-age into the beginning of an interglacial.
The 18O/16O analysis of Greenland ice cores shows that an immense
melting of glacier ice began about 13,000 years ago and was
essentially
completed within a millenium. But this information is slow-moving
in
time, although it possesses the great merit of being of
world-wide
significance. On a more restricted geographical scale, fossil
insect
records show that the summer temperature in Britain rose by 10oC
or
more in as little as 50 years, an essentially decisive indication
of a
catastrophic event as its cause. The fossil insect record also
shows
that a second catastrophic event of a similar nature occurred
10,000
years ago, again with a major temperature rise in only a few
decades.
It is therefore cometary impacts that we must thank for the
equable
spell of climate in which human history and civilisation has
prospered
so spectacularly.
The renewal of ice-age conditions would render a large fraction
of the
world's major food-growing areas inoperable, and so would
inevitably
lead to the extinction of most of the present human population.
Since
bolide impacts cannot be called up to order, we must look to a
sustained greenhouse effect to maintain the present advantageous
world
climate. This implies the ability to inject effective greenhouse
gases
into the atmosphere, the opposite of what environmentalists are
erroneously advocating.
5. Conclusions
Ice-age conditions are dry and cold, the local temperature being
reduced over the entire Earth. The high atmosphere probably had a
haze
of small ice crystals while the lower atmosphere was dusty.
Such
conditions were stable, capable of persisting until a large
bolide hit
one of the major oceans. The water then thrown high into the
stratosphere provided a large temporary greenhouse effect, but
sufficient to produce a warming of the world ocean down to a
depth of a
few hundred metres. It is this warming that maintains the
resulting
interglacial period. The interglacial climate possesses only
neutral
equilibrium however. It experiences random walk both up and down,
until
a situation arises in which the number of steps downward become
sufficient for the Earth to fall back into the ice-age
trap.
Thereafter only a further large bolide impact can produce a
departure
from the grey, drab iceage conditions. This will be so in the
future
unless Man finds an effective way to maintain a suitably large
greenhouse effect.
Copyright, Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe
----------------------------------------
THE CAMBRIDGE-CONFERENCE NETWORK (CCNet)
----------------------------------------
The CCNet is a scholarly electronic network. To
subscribe/unsubscribe,
please contact the moderator Benny J Peiser <b.j.peiser@livjm.ac.uk>.
Information circulated on this network is for scholarly and
educational use only. The attached information may not be copied
or
reproduced for any other purposes without prior permission of the
copyright holders. The fully indexed archive of the CCNet, from
February 1997 on, can be found at http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/cccmenu.html
*
CCNet 91/2001 - 20 August 2001: SIR FRED HOYLE, PROPHET OF
PANSPERMIA
---------------------------------------------------------------------
"There would, I expect, be few scientists who have agreed
with all
of Sir Fred Hoyle's ideas and yet I for one have always looked
forward
to his submissions to CCNet. Scientists, such as Sir Hoyle, who
challenge the establish dogma on the basis of conviction make a
contribution to science that goes far beyond their established
achievements
and discoveries because they pose the questions that stimulate
discussion and thought. It is through 'giving a theory a good
shake to see
what falls out' that revolutions in understanding often
occur."
--Matthew Genge, The Natural History Museum, 22 August 2001
"Home for Hoyle is not a cozy cottage with an overstuffed
chair in
front of the fireplace. Not for him the comforts of academic
tenure
and the polite respect of colleagues. He is at home on the tops
of
mountains, at the cusps of controversies, where the winds blow
fiercely
and even God is not omnipotent but, as Hoyle says, just `doing
his best' to
make an adequate universe."
--Stephen G. Brush, science historian, 1995
(1) SIR FRED HOYLE (1915 - 2001)
New York Times, 22 August 2001
(2) SIR FRED HOYLE
Matthew Genge <M.Genge@nhm.ac.uk>
(3) PANSPERMIA: WHERE DID WE COME FROM?
BioMedNet, 20 July 2001
(4) NEW EVIDENCE OF LIVING BACTERIA FROM SPACE
Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
(5) INDIAN CRYO PROBE CAPTURES LIVING MICRO-ORGANIZMS FROM OUTER
SPACE
Arvind Paranjpye <arp@iucaa.ernet.in>
(6) BACTERIA POINT TO LIFE IN OUTER SPACE
Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
(7) SCEPTICISM GREET 'SPACE BUGS' CLAIM
BBC News Online, 31 July 2001
(8) LIFE FROM SPACE DUST?
Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
(9) AN ARGUMENT FOR THE COMETARY ORIGIN OF THE BIOSPHERE
American Scientist, September-October 2001
(10) BIOASTRONOMY 2002: LIFE AMONG THE STARS
Richard Taylor <probability.rgroup@virgin.net>
===============
(1) SIR FRED HOYLE (1915 - 2001)
Fred Hoyle Dies at 86; Opposed 'Big Bang' but Named It
>From The New York Times, 22 August 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/22/obituaries/22HOYL.html?ex=999144000&en=0e0c6a4565011062&ei=5040&partner=MOREOVER
By WALTER SULLIVAN
Sir Fred Hoyle, one of the most creative and provocative
astrophysicists of
the last half century, who helped explain how the heavier
elements were
formed and gave the name Big Bang, meant to be derisive, to the
theory of
cosmic origin he vehemently opposed, died on Monday in
Bournemouth, England.
He was 86 and lived in Bournemouth.
He suffered a severe stroke last month and never recovered, said
Dr.
Geoffrey Burbidge, an astrophysicist at the University of
California at San
Diego who had collaborated with Dr. Hoyle on many research
projects.
"Fred was probably the most creative and original person in
astrophysics
after World War II," Dr. Burbidge said.
Dr. Virginia Trimble, an astrophysicist at the University of
California at
Irvine, said that Dr. Hoyle's opposition to the Big Bang, while
considered a
mistake, "was significant in that it went a long way toward
making cosmology
a true science" in which competing theories were tested by
observations.
A versatile scientist brimming with ideas and a lifelong rebel
eager for
intellectual combat, Dr. Hoyle was most widely known as an author
of the
cosmological theory, which now has few adherents, that the
universe exists
in a steady state. The theory, published in 1948, contends that
matter is
constantly being created, so the expanding universe remains
roughly the same
at all times and has no beginning or end.
In a series of popular radio talks in Britain in the 1940's, he
coined "big
bang" to ridicule the rival concept of an explosive origin
of the universe,
but the term is now widely used and the explosion theory is
generally
accepted. In recent years Sir Fred joined those arguing for a
universe that
- while eternal - expands and contracts.
The astronomer was instrumental in establishing the Institute of
Theoretical
Astronomy at the University of Cambridge in England and became
its first
director. From 1958 to 1972 he was also Plumian professor of
astronomy at
the university, a post previously held by such leading scientists
as Sir
Arthur Eddington, whose groundbreaking experiments confirmed the
general
theory of relativity.
A historic development in astrophysics was explaining how the
elements came
to be synthesized step by step in the stars, starting from
hydrogen and
helium. In the 1930's, Dr. Hans Bethe and others showed how stars
could
derive their energy from the fusion of hydrogen nuclei (protons)
to form
helium.
The problem Dr. Hoyle and colleagues faced was how slightly
larger elements
like carbon, nitrogen and oxygen were formed by stars. An element
called
beryllium-8, which was an intermediate stage in the process of
element
formation, stood in the way. It did not survive long enough for
the fusion
process to reach carbon-12, the next stage in the element
building process.
Dr. Hoyle solved the problem: he pressed nuclear physicists to
look for a
special state of carbon-12, that was stable enough for the fusion
of heavier
elements to occur.
Then, working with three other scientists, Dr. Hoyle figured out
how all the
heavier elements could have been formed. Their historic paper was
published
in 1957 in Reviews of Modern Physics. In addition to Dr. Hoyle,
the
scientists were Dr. William A. Fowler, ofCalifornia Institute of
Technology;
Dr. Burbidge and Dr. Margaret Burbidge, his wife.
While the formation of the lighter elements, up to iron, could be
explained
by processes inside stars, extremely high temperatures and
violent events
were needed. The answer proposed by the four was the supernova,
in which a
giant star collapses to extreme density, then cataclysmically
rebounds.
For this and his subsequent work in astrophysics, Dr. Fowler was
awarded the
Nobel Prize in Physics. The other three were omitted, probably in
part
because the prize is rarely, if ever, awarded to more than two
people.
Fred Hoyle's noncomformity manifested itself at an early age.
Born in
Bingley, Yorkshire, he found school boring, preferring to remain
at home
studying a textbook in elementary chemistry and doing chemistry
experiments
with equipment he found in his home. As recounted in his 1994
autobiography,
"Home Is Where the Wind Blows," in his parents' absence
he enjoyed making
gunpowder and creating explosions.
As school was compulsory, his absence led to difficulties with
the local
authorities. The family did not have the funds to send him to a
private
school, but he finally won scholarships, including one from the
West Riding
of Yorkshire, and started on the path that eventually led him to
Cambridge.
As soon as he reached Cambridge he came under the tutelage of
such top
physicists as Rudolph Peierls, Eddington, P. A. M. Dirac and R.
H. Fowler,
whose calculations set the stage for the concept of black holes,
stars whose
collapse has yielded such density that the gravity prevents even
light from
escaping.
During World War II he led a radar development group at an
Admiralty Signal
Establishment center in West Sussex, near the south coast.
Working under him
were two refugees from Vienna: Thomas Gold and Hermann Bondi.
During the day
the trio worked on radar. At night they discussed astrophysics,
developing
the steady-state cosmology. They accepted the evidence for its
constant
expansion, but proposed that matter is constantly formed to fill
the gaps.
In 1995 Dr. Bondi and Dr. Gold credited Dr. Hoyle with first
proposing such
continuous creation of new matter.
Dr. John Faulkner, of the Lick Observatory in California, said
that during
the "magical six years" after establishment of the
Institute of Theoretical
Astronomy at Cambridge in 1966, it became "an obligatory
mecca" for young
American astronomers, many of whom felt the institute
"fostered their best
work."
But by his own account Sir Fred never shrank from controversy,
and in 1972,
after a falling out with Cambridge officialdom and rancorous
debate on the
future of British astronomy, he resigned as director of the
institute.
Sir Fred's work on interstellar organic molecules led him to
propose that
life originated in space. Working with a student, Chandra
Wickramasinghe, he
championed the unorthodox theory that the seeds of life,
including disease
viruses, periodically fall from space.
They attributed the onset of various epidemics to such viruses,
attempting
to document this in the simultaneous appearance of influenza at
schools in
remote parts of England and Wales.
These theories are reflected in titles of the books he did with
Dr.
Wickramasinghe: "Lifecloud" (1958), "Diseases from
Space" (1979), "Space
Travelers: The Origins of Life" (1980) and "Cosmic Life
Force" (1988). His
more conventional writing produced "Frontiers of
Astronomy," a widely used
text.
Dr. Hoyle, along with Dr. Geoffrey Burbidge and Dr. Jayant V.
Narliker,
renewed their fight against Big Bang orthodoxy with the book
"A Different
Approach to Cosmology" (Cambridge University Press, 2000).
Dr. Hoyle was also a prolific author of science fiction,
producing almost
one book a year between 1950 and 1990, some written with his son,
Geoffrey.
Among the best known were "The Black Cloud" (1957) and
"Ossian's Ride"
(1958).
In 1957 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society and in the
early 1970's
he was president of the Royal Astronomical Society. He was
knighted in 1972.
In recent years he lived in Bournemouth. In addition to his son,
also of
Bournemouth, he is survived by his wife, the former Barbara
Clark, whom he
married in 1939, and a daughter Elizabeth Butler, a London
stockbroker.
"Home for Hoyle," Stephen G. Brush, a science
historian, wrote in 1995, "is
not a cozy cottage with an overstuffed chair in front of the
fireplace. Not
for him the comforts of academic tenure and the polite respect of
colleagues. He is at home on the tops of mountains, at the cusps
of
controversies, where the winds blow fiercely and even God is not
omnipotent
but, as Hoyle says, just `doing his best' to make an adequate
universe."
Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company
==============
(2) SIR FRED HOYLE
>From Matthew Genge <M.Genge@nhm.ac.uk>
There would, I expect, be few scientists who have agreed with all
of Sir
Fred Hoyle's ideas and yet I for one have always looked forward
to his
submissions to CCNet. Scientists, such as Sir Hoyle, who
challenge the
establish dogma on the basis of conviction make a contribution to
science
that goes far beyond their established achievements and
discoveries because
they pose the questions that stimulate discussion and thought. It
is through
'giving a theory a good shake to see what falls out' that
revolutions in
understanding often occur.
Matthew Genge
The Natural History Museum
mjg@nhm.ac.uk
____________________
Dr Matthew J. Genge
Researcher (Meteoritics)
Department of Mineralogy, The Natural History Museum
Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK.
Tel: Int + 020 7 942 5581
Fax: Int.+ 020 7 942 5537
email: M.Genge@nhm.ac.uk
Staff internet page http://www.nhm.ac.uk/mineralogy/genge/genge.htm
==============
(3) PANSPERMIA: WHERE DID WE COME FROM?
>From BioMedNet, 20 July 2001
http://news.bmn.com/hmsbeagle/108/reviews/insitu
by Emily Willingham
Posted July 20, 2001 · Issue 108
Maybe life on Earth began somewhere else. Perhaps the seeds of
life even
came from outer space. Or so says a theory called panspermia,
which
literally means "seeds everywhere." Although this might
sound outlandish,
recent discoveries showed some panspermia hypotheses as being
closer to fact
than fiction. Nevertheless, you don't have to be an
astrobiologist,
cosmologist, or exobiologist to decide which panspermia bandwagon
- if any -
to join. A tour of the World Wide Web supplies a flood of
information on
panspermia that is as fascinating to wade through as it might be
fanciful,
plausible, inevitable, or ridiculous - depending on your point of
view.
The origin of life might involve outer space.
Panspermia's roots stretch back to the Greek philosopher
Anaxagoras, who
documented theories about extraplanetary seeding in the 5th
century B.C.
Today, however, historians call Svante Arrhenius the father of
panspermia.
He was a Swedish scientist who thought that bacteria might be
capable of
intergalactic travel. Contrary to what you might think, Arrhenius
was not a
scientific crank. In 1903, he won the Nobel Prize for chemistry,
and he is
most famous for his work showing that electrolytes dissociate
into ions in
solution even when no current is present. Over the centuries,
panspermia
sprouted varied branches of thought. Some scientists, for
example,
hypothesized that interstellar bacteria rode a comet's tail that
struck
Earth, and then the bacteria germinated in rich, pro-biotic
conditions.
Others propose that the source of life on Earth came from a
little closer to
home, perhaps from the fourth rock from the sun - Mars - in the
form of
meteorites. Still other researchers propose that robotic
spacecraft from
beyond our solar system brought life to Earth.
Some top scientists support other-world hypotheses.
If the origin of life makes you think of electrical charges
surging through
the artificial primordial soup in the Miller/Urey experiment,
then the
concept of panspermia might really stretch the limits of your
imagination.
Nevertheless, this hypothesis has attracted some pretty
prestigious backers.
For example, Francis Crick of the Salk Institute for Biological
Studies
endorsed what is known as directed panspermia, a type of
"seeding" of the
Earth involving purposeful intent on the part of unidentified
extraterrestrials. Still, the concept that life on Earth sprang
from whole
cells arriving here on a cosmic express train hovers at the edges
of
accepted scientific thought, regardless of the mechanism proposed
for this
extraterrestrial seeding. Two of today's most well-known
proponents of
panspermia are Chandra Wickramasinghe and Sir Fred Hoyle, both of
Cardiff
University in Wales. Both of these astronomers reported finding
living
bacteria in the upper levels of the Earth's atmosphere, which is
described
in the Web sites Analysis of Interstellar Dust and Scientists
Discover
Possible Microbe From Space. These bacteria, which appeared to be
a novel
strain of a common earthbound species, could have been deposited
by a comet.
Wickramasinghe and Hoyle also reported that a spectral analysis
of "space
dust" revealed a spectral signature specific to organic
compounds high in
the Earth's atmosphere, which is described in Cross-Linked Hetero
Aromatic
Polymers in Interstellar Dust. Further analysis indicated that
this spectral
signature was unique to bacterial components.
Can bacteria survive a meteor ride?
Some scientists maintain that bacteria, or just about anything
else,
wouldn't make it to Earth because the force of the impact would
destroy
them. Nevertheless, Jennifer Blank of the University of
California at
Berkeley has recently demonstrated that short peptide chains can
handle such
an impact. Even these short chains provide a viable potential
link to
extraplanetary origins of life on Earth. Blank plans to carry her
experiments further by examining how the shock of impact affects
bacterial
spores, which are purported to protect bacteria during
outer-space travel.
You can read more about this work in Was Johnny Appleseed a
Comet? Many
academics argue that the scenario described as panspermia still
does not
answer the fundamental question of how life began. Whether life
originated
on Earth or elsewhere, it had to originate somewhere, right?
Maybe. Hoyle
speculates that life has always existed, which would make any
debate about
the origins of life - whether on Earth or beyond the sun - moot.
Although
Hoyle coined the phrase The Big Bang, it was while making fun of
that
concept; he actually supports the Steady-State Theory, which is
an
Aristotelian idea that the universe always existed and always
will.
The odds of life always seem small.
How unearthly is the concept that life exists elsewhere in the
universe and
traveled across galaxies to land on our lonely little planet?
Such
cosmological notables as Carl Sagan did not dismiss the idea out
of hand, as
you can see in his article entitled The Search for
Extraterrestrial Life.
Instead of searching for life itself, those seriously involved in
the search
for extraterrestrial origins seek places amenable to life, places
like Earth
where seeds in the form of single cells could take root and grow.
Nevertheless, many scientists point out that the confluence of
factors
required to create the kind of complex life we have here on Earth
has a very
low likelihood of occurring once, much less twice or several
times over, as
explained in galactic habitable zones. If complex life is highly
unlikely,
then the likelihood that complex life forms could send spacecraft
across the
universe to seed new planets seems even more unlikely. But Crick,
in the
book Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature, written with Leslie
Orgel, also of
the Salk Institute, maintains that the kind of scenario required
for life to
originate on Earth is the most unlikely set of circumstances of
all. For
example, in the famed Miller/Urey experiments on life's origins,
atmospheric
conditions for pre-biotic Earth were assumed to be what has been
termed
primordial - lots of ammonia and methane and very little oxygen.
Nevertheless, Earth's early atmosphere might have been
oxygen-rich and,
therefore, not conducive to originating life. In addition, Crick
says the
Earth is not old enough to have created life. Perhaps on older
planets, life
evolved and achieved technical heights beyond our imagination,
and seeded
the universe with life via rocket ships.
Mars grabs the headlines on life.
Although "directed panspermia" might get hooted out of
the auditorium if any
less-respected scientific figure proposed it, some investigators
give more
thought to another idea: Life on Earth Could Have Come From a
Mars Rock. In
Tests on Mars Rock Reveal Life Can Jump Between Planets, you can
read about
a meteorite that was discovered in Antarctica. Scientists found
that the
interior of this rock never got too hot for bacteria to handle,
even as it
entered the Earth's atmosphere. As New Life for the "Mars
Rock"? explains,
some investigators believe that this meteorite contained bits of
Martian
bacteria. The findings that bacteria could travel through space
in
comparatively cool conditions added fuel to the panspermia
speculation and
made this hypothesis more difficult to dismiss. Nevertheless,
many
investigators simply say that panspermia takes too many steps.
Moreover,
some think that it fails the basic scientific search for the most
parsimonious explanation of a phenomenon. Still, meteorites from
Mars and
proteins surviving space travel make us wonder where the origin
of life
might lie. As with any examination of events that took place
billions of
years ago, we might never know the real answer. In the end,
however, we
might conclude that the truth is even stranger than science
fiction.
Emily Willingham is a writer based in Austin, Texas.
Matt Morrow is a freelance illustrator from Omaha, Nebraska.
Copyright 2001, © Elsevier Science Limited 2000
==============
(4) NEW EVIDENCE OF LIVING BACTERIA FROM SPACE
>From Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
Cardiff University
Cardiff, Wales
Contact:
Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe
+44 (0)29 2075 2146 mob: 07778 389243
Wickramasinghe@cf.ac.uk
xdw20@dial.pipex.com
Embargo: 29 Jul 2001 00:01
New evidence of living bacteria from space
Evidence of living bacterial cells entering the Earth's upper
atmosphere
from space has come from a joint project involving Indian and UK
scientists.
The first positive identification of extraterrestrial microbial
life will be
reported on Sunday, 29 July 2001 at the Astrobiology session of
the 46th
Annual SPIE meeting in San Diego, USA by Professor Chandra
Wickramasinghe of
Cardiff University. He will speak on behalf of an international
team led by
Professor Jayant Narlikar, Director of the Inter-Universities
Centre for
Astronomy and Astrophysics in Pune, India.
Samples of stratospheric air were collected on 21 January 2001
under the
most stringent aseptic conditions by Indian scientists using the
Indian
Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) cryogenic sampler payload
flown on
balloons from the Tata Institute Balloon Launching facility in
Hyderabad.
Part of the samples sent to Cardiff were analysed by a team at
Cardiff
University led by Professor David Lloyd and assisted by Melanie
Harris.
Commenting on the results, Professor Wickramasinghe said:
"There is now
unambiguous evidence for the presence of clumps of living cells
in air
samples from as high as 41 kilometres, well above the local
tropopause (16
km), above which no air from lower down would normally be
transported."
The detection was made using a fluorescent cyanine dye which is
only taken
up by the membranes of living cells. The variation with height of
the
distribution of such cells indicates strongly that the clumps of
bacterial
cells are falling from space. The daily input of such biological
material is
provisionally estimated as about one third of a tonne over the
entire
planet.
This new evidence provides strong support for the Panspermia
theory of Sir
Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe.
"We have argued for more than two decades that terrestrial
life was brought
down to Earth by comets and that cometary material containing
microorganisms
must still be reaching us in large quantities," said
Professor
Wickramasinghe.
-ends-
Notes for Editors
1. For a copy of the seven-page report, entitled "The
detection of living
cells in stratospheric samples", including images, contact
Debra Lewis,
Cardiff University Press Officer on Tel: + 44 (0)29 2087 4499,
mobile
07970 963633.
2. Cardiff University is home to the UK's first Centre for
Astrobiology
[http://astrobiology.cf.ac.uk/], which provides the
UK with a facility to
contribute to space missions probing for life on
solar system bodies. The
Centre is a joint initiative between the University
and the University
of Wales College of Medicine. The Centre combines
research interests in
astronomy and molecular cell biology to throw light
on the emergence and
development of life in the cosmos and planetary
bodies. The work of the
Centre will also provide information essential for
the emergent
discipline
of space medicine.
3. Cardiff University has a history of service to Wales and the
world which
dates from its foundation by Royal Charter in 1883.
Today, independent
government assessments recognise the University as
one of Britain's
leading research and teaching universities. Eighty
per cent of academic
staff are in departments assessed as undertaking
work of national and
international excellence and the University is, by
invitation, a member
of the Russell Group of leading research
universities. Twenty-one subject
areas have been assessed as "Excellent"
for teaching, one of the highest
totals in Britain.
===============
(5) INDIAN CRYO PROBE CAPTURES LIVING MICRO-ORGANIZMS FROM OUTER
SPACE
From: Arvind Paranjpye <arp@iucaa.ernet.in>
Sent: 30 July 2001 12:48
Hello,
Copied below is the press release that we sent out today
Regards,
Arvind
----------------
Arvind Paranjpye
Sci./Tech. Officer
Public Outreach Programme
---------------------------------------
Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics
Post Bag #4,
Ganeshkhind
Pune 411 007
India
For Press Release
INDIAN CRYO PROBE CAPTURES LIVING MICRO-ORGANIZMS FROM OUTER
SPACE
Evidence of living bacterial cells entering earth's atmosphere
from space
has been established from the analysis of data collected by
ISRO's cryogenic
sampler payload flown on-board a balloon on 21st January, 2001.
Indian Space Research Organisation developed the cryosampler
payload as part
of its Geosphere Biosphere Programme (ISRO-GBP). It is employed
to measure
ozone depleting substances in the stratosphere and greenhouse
gases in the
troposphere. The first successful flight was conducted in April
1994
followed by two more successful flights in 1998 and 1999. The
data from
these experiments were analyzed at PRL/DOS laboratories which led
to the
reporting of new findings on the abundances of Methyl Bromide and
Sulphur
Hexafluoride in addition to a number of other Montreal Protocol
substances.
While this programme continued, Professor J.V. Narlikar of IUCAA
and
Professor N.C. Wickramasinghe of Cardiff made a joint request to
ISRO to
make available the ISRO's state-of-the-art cryogenic sampler
payload in
order to `Test the Presence of Extra-Terrestrial Microorganisms
Entering the
Earth's Surface', thus providing an experimental evidence in
support
Panspermia theory of Sir Fred Hoyle and propounded over two
decades ago.
Consequent to the approval by Government of India, Department
of Space,
ISRO conducted the experiment after developing special highly
sterilized
probes together with associated avionics, sophisticated
sterilization
systems, etc. from National Scientific Balloon Facility of Tata
Institute of
Fundamental Research, Hyderabad on 21st January, 2001. Parts of
the samples
are analysed at Cardiff University and the other at Centre for
Cellular and
Molecular Biology, Hyderabad.
The analysis at Cardiff done so far has brought to bear
unambiguous evidence
of living cells at several altitude points above troposphere and
up to 41
kms. The analysis indicated that about a third of a tonne of
extra-terrestrial bacterial matter enters every day into the
earth's
atmosphere possibly forming part of over 100 tonnes of cometary
material
that enters earth's atmosphere daily. These results are being
reported on
29th July, 2001 at the Astrobiology Session of the 46th Annual
SPIE
Conference at San Diego by Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe on
behalf of
the Indo-UK team of scientists.
While further analysis is in progress both at CCMB and Cardiff,
the evidence
so far is indeed dramatic and path breaking and could lead to
several
discoveries as to life and diseases from outer space.
This research is conducted by Professor J.V. Narlikar and his
team assisted
by Mr. P. Rajaratnam, Project Director of ISRO's
Cryosampler based
Experiments Programme.
Incidentally, it is interesting to note that ISRO's Advisory
Committee on
Space Sciences, conceptualized the plan of experimental
investigation as to
evidence of extra-terrestrial life forms entering earth's surface
around
1990. Several scientists' teams world over too had
similar plans. However,
complexity of the instrumentation required deterred many a
scientists group
world over in attempting such experimental investigation which
India today
has succeeded through this Indo-UK collaborative programme.
=============
(6) BACTERIA POINT TO LIFE IN OUTER SPACE
>From Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
[ http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4230987,00.html
]
Tuesday, July 31, 2001
Bacteria point to life in outer space
By John Ezard, The Guardian
Scientists from Cardiff University have discovered live bacteria
so high in
the earth's atmosphere as to indicate "strongly" that
they come from outer
space.
An announcement from the university called them "the first
positive
identification" of life existing outside Earth.
The claim was met with scepticism but was not immediately
rejected. Doubts
hinge on "a strong possibility" that the
micro-organisms will turn out to
come from Earth.
Duncan Steel, reader in space technology at Salford University,
said, "Most
scientists would be very dubious. But it is an interesting theory
which
deserves verification".
The bacteria were found in air samples collected by altitude
balloons, from
a research facility at Hyderabad, India, which went up to 41
kilometres --
twice as high as similar probes launched by NASA.
This took them above the tropopause, the boundary between the
troposphere
(the lowest atmospheric level) and the stratosphere.
"There is now unambiguous evidence for the presence of
clumps of living
cells in air samples from as high as 41km, well above the
tropopause --
above which no air from lower down would normally be
transported", said team
leader, Chandra Wickramasinghe, professor of astronomy and
applied
mathmatics at Cardiff.
Presenting results at a meeting of the International Society for
Optical
Engineering in San Diego, California, Prof Wickramasinghe said,
"A prima
facie case for a space incidence of bacteria on to the Earth may
have been
established."
Devices on the balloons kept the air samples in sterile
conditions to avoid
contamination. A fluorescent dye only absorbed by the membranes
of living
cells was used to detect the presence of the organisms.
Electron microscope images showed coral-like clumps of material
measuring
between five and 15 micrometres across.
The team said the way that distribution of these in the samples
varied with
height indicated that the bacteria had fallen from space rather
than risen
from Earth.
This assumption is a point which troubles other scientists.
"There is
nothing to show that things cannot be transported upwards in the
atmosphere", one said, "The idea that nothing can be
transported over the
tropopause is dubious. But I would love Chandra to be
right".
Another Cardiff team member, David Lloyd, said, "What we
found look like
normal bacteria. They are the right size and have a cell wall,
and it's not
unusual to find bacteria in clumps like this.
"It may be they are just ordinary terrestrial bacteria, but
we don't know
how they could have got to these heights."
© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001
=============
(7) SCEPTICISM GREET 'SPACE BUGS' CLAIM
>From the BBC News Online, 31 July 2001
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1466000/1466477.stm
Space bugs? Other scientists think they probably come from Earth
The claim that alien bacteria had been found high up in the
Earth's
atmosphere was greeted with a large degree of scepticism on
Tuesday.
Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe, from Cardiff University, UK,
told a
weekend conference that a balloon flight at an altitude of 41
kilometres had
recovered clumps of microbes that most probably had their origin
in outer
space.
"They look like terrestrial cells but it's exceedingly
unlikely that they
could have been lifted up from the ground in the quantity that we
find -
something like 100 bacteria per litre of air," Professor
Wickramasinghe
said.
But scientists working in the field of astrobiology - the study
of life in
the Universe - said they had yet to be convinced by the Cardiff
evidence.
Clusters of cells
Professor Wickramasinghe outlined the findings of joint UK/Indian
research
at a meeting of the International Society for Optical Engineering
in San
Diego, California, US.
Balloons were sent up from a research facility in Hyderabad to
collect
samples of air at high altitudes. The samples were then sent to
Cardiff
where microbiologists were able to isolate clusters of cells.
About of a third of a tonne of the "space bugs" fall
over the entire planet
each day, Prof Wickramasinghe estimates
"My colleagues have identified these as living cells because
they take up a
certain dye and show up as a fluorescent spot on the
microscope," Professor
Wickramasinghe said.
"But the team haven't yet been able to culture them and that
gives added
confidence that the microbes are something alien. Because, if
they were
ordinary run-of-the-mill bacterial contaminants, they would be
very easy to
culture."
The professor has long argued that comets and space dust probably
brought
the seeds of life to Earth. He and the eminent astronomer Sir
Fred Hoyle put
forward the so-called Panspermia Theory, which suggests that
life, or the
building blocks of life, could be carried to planets by comets or
drifting
interstellar dust particles.
Need for publication
However, UK scientists interested in the search for
extraterrestrial life
said they would need to see more hard evidence from the
experiments before
they could accept the analysis.
Dr Alan Penny, an astronomer from the Rutherford Appleton
Laboratory, and a
member of the UK Astrobiology Forum and Network, told the BBC
that "there
were unresolved questions about contamination in the
experiments". "I think
Chandra is being a bit optimistic," he added.
Experimental error was also highlighted as a potential problem by
Professor
John Zarnecki, from the Open University, another network member.
"I would like to be positive but the burning question for me
is: how do we
know there is no contamination? Let's see the work published.
Let's see it
peer reviewed," he told BBC News Online.
And Professor George Tranter, a biochemist from Imperial College,
said: "We
need to see the evidence. They have long-standing theories, which
they're
looking to find evidence to support."
Copyright 2001, BBC
============
(8) LIFE FROM SPACE DUST?
>From Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
>From BBC News Online, 15 August 2001
http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/sci/tech/newsid_1492000/1492411.stm
Astrophysicists say particles swirling around planets could have
been
transformed into the building blocks of life by the solar wind,
then fallen
to Earth as dust.
A Polish team says it has shown in the laboratory that a
biological molecule
is formed when space dust is zapped with a high-energy beam of
light.
But other scientists are sceptical about claims that life arrived
on this
planet from outer space. Thousands of tonnes of dust from space
enter the
Earth's atmosphere each year.
Open question
The astrophysicists, based at Jagiellonian University, say
precursors of
life are more likely to have reached Earth in the form of dust
than during a
comet impact.
Dust would be more likely to enter the Earth's atmosphere without
burning
up, they argue, while any complex biological molecules borne by
comet would
be destroyed.
"The formation of terrestrial life is still an open
question. It is believed
that abiotic creation of simple biogenic molecules and then later
chemical
and physical transformation could lead to the generation of cells
and then
contemporary organisms," Professor Lubomir Gabla of
Jagiellonian University
told the BBC.
"Some of the molecules synthesised in our experiment have a
biologically
active nature," he said.
Space missions
Mark Burchell of the Physics laboratory at the University of Kent
at
Canterbury, UK, says that space missions take scientists closer
to answering
the question of how life began on Earth.
"The problem in the laboratory is that you always can do
things on a bench
top," he told BBC News Online.
"But did it really happen? If you think that you could have
generated some
of these building blocks out in space, the thing to do is go out
in space
and have a look," he said.
Genesis probe
NASA launched the Genesis mission two weeks ago: an unmanned
mission to
collect solar winds and dust.
Its Genesis spacecraft will travel a million miles towards the
Sun, open a
lid and expose a series of arrays ready to pick up solar wind
particles.
After three years the lid will close and the craft will return to
Earth with
about 20 micrograms of solar wind.
It is estimated that around 3,000 tons of interplanetary dust
fall to Earth
every year.
The Polish research is published in the journal Physical Review
Letters.
© 2001 BBC News
==================
(9) AN ARGUMENT FOR THE COMETARY ORIGIN OF THE BIOSPHERE
>From American Scientist, September-October 2001
http://www.americanscientist.org/articles/01articles/Delsemme.html
The evidence suggests that a rain of comets brought the Earth its
water, its
organic molecules and its atmosphere-key ingredients for life's
beginnings
Armand Delsemme
Keywords:
Origin of life, planetology, Hadean, comet impacts, early solar
system,
water, protoearth, ocean, atmosphere, Jupiter
Abstract:
The young Earth appear to have been bombarded by comets for
several hundred
million years shortly after it was formed. This onslaught,
perhaps involving
hundreds of millions of comet impacts, is currently the best
explantion for
the origin of the Earth's oceans, atmosphere and organic
molecules. Although
historically a controversial idea, there is now a considerable
amount of
physical and chemical evidence supporting the theory. Comet
scientist
Armand Delsemme reviews the evidence and argues that comets from
the
vicinity of Jupiter contributed the bulk of the constituents
found in
Earth's biosphere.
Armand H. Delsemme is an internationally recognized comet
scientist who
until 1988 was a professor of astrophysics at the University of
Toledo,
Ohio. He has made fundamental contributions to our understanding
of the
origins and chemistry of comets, and has received many honors for
his work,
including the Kuiper Prize from the Division of Planetary
Sciences of the
American Astronomical Society in 1999. A Sigma Xi member and an
avid skier,
he celebrated his 80th birthday in 1998 atop Vail Mountain in
Colorado at an
elevation of 11,400 feet (which brought him just a little closer
to the
comets). Address for Delsemme: 2509 Meadowwood Drive, Toledo,
Ohio 43606.
Copyright 2001, American Scientist
==============
(10) BIOASTRONOMY 2002: LIFE AMONG THE STARS
>From Richard Taylor <probability.rgroup@virgin.net>
If you are not on the IAU circulation list you may be interested
to know of
the following Bioastronomy meeting scheduled for 2002.
-----------
FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS
International Astronomical Union Symposium 213
Bioastronomy 2002: Life Among the Stars
http://bioastronomy.uws.edu.au>
Great Barrier Reef, Australia
July 8-12, 2002
Dear Colleague,
This email is to invite you to attend IAU Symposium 213:
"Bioastronomy 2002
- Life Among the Stars", to be held on Hamilton Island, on
Australia's
tropical Great Barrier Reef. The topics covered will include, but
will not
be limited to:
Astrochemistry
Origin, evolution, and discovery of planetary systems
The solar system
Biogenesis and the astronomical conditions for evolution of life
The search for extra-terrestrial life
Education, outreach and social impact
Where do we go from here?
We are in the process of inviting a number of leaders in
the field to give
invited review talks, and a list of these will be posted on the
web shortly.
There will also be contributed oral papers (about 15 min each)
and poster
papers. Poster papers will be an important and integral part of
the
conference, with allocated conference sessions and ample
opportunity for
participants to discuss posters with their presenters in a
relaxed and
informal setting.
DATES AND VENUE
Hamilton Island, Queensland, Australia, July 8-12 plus a one-day
conference
trip to explore the Great Barrier Reef on Saturday July 13.
Participants are
advised to arrive no later than Sunday July 7. Conference rates
for rooms
apply both prior to the conference and afterwards as well as
during the
symposium.
ACCOMMODATION
A block booking of 400 rooms has been made at Hamilton Island's
only resort
(there are no other hotels on the island). The rooms are varied
from
one-bedroom apartments to Queen-sized twin-bedded hotel rooms,
most with an
ocean view, with an average price of around US$100 (or A$200) per
night.
Shared rooms will be available for students and those on limited
budgets for
as little as US$20 per night.
However, the number of rooms is limited and it is expected that
90% of them
will be booked by December, leaving only limited opportunities
for late
registrations. See the www page for more details.
TRANSPORTATION
Arrangements are currently being made for charter flights from
Sydney
directly into Hamilton Island on Sunday July 7. On other days the
number of
seats available commercially are limited to around 150 per day. A
special
fare is being negotiated. Further details will appear on the
Bioastronomy
web site at <http://bioastronomy.uws.edu.au>
shortly.
REGISTRATION FEES
These have not yet been finalised, but are likely to be no more
than US$250
for full registration and US$100 for students.
REGISTRATION OF INTEREST
If you wish to be placed on our mailing list, please send your
name and
email address to the Local Organising Committee Chair, Carol
Oliver, at
c.oliver@uws.edu.au. If
you wish to give a paper, please send an abstract
of about 50-100 words to Carol Oliver, at the same email address.
Please
indicate whether you would prefer a poster or oral paper.
WEB SITE ADDRESS
For more details see <http://bioastronomy.uws.edu.au>
For queries contact Carol Oliver, the LOC chair, on c.oliver@uws.edu.au
----------------------------------------------------------------
Prof. Ray P. Norris
Science Organising Committee Chair,
IAU Symposium 213 "Bioastronomy 2002: Life Among the
Stars"
Acting Director
CSIRO Australia Telescope National Facility
PO Box 76 Email: Ray.Norris@atnf.csiro.au
Epping WWW: http://www.atnf.csiro.au/~rnorris
NSW 1710 Phone: +61 2 9372 4416
Australia Fax: +61 2 9372 4310
Mobile: 0417 288 307
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