Absolutely groundbreaking discovery! NASA scientists have found frozen and fossilized life on some meteors! This could give a huge boost to the theory of Panspermia for explaining the origin of life on earth. Everyone should read this paper, or if not, at least the conclusions drawn.
Fossils of Cyanobacteria in CI1 Carbonaceous Meteorites
The author has also submitted the paper to over 100 other leading researchers in the field to review the results and study the meteorites for them selves. We'll see in a couple of months whether the finding are accurate or not.
Fossils of Cyanobacteria in CI1 Carbonaceous Meteorites
6. CONCLUSIONS
It is concluded that the complex filaments found embedded in the CI1 carbonaceous meteorites represent the remains of indigenous microfossils of cyanobacteria and other prokaryotes associated with modern and fossil prokaryotic mats. Many of the Ivuna and Orgueil filaments are isodiametric and others tapered, polarized and exhibit clearly differentiated apical and basal cells. These filaments were found in freshly fractured stones and are observed to be attached to the meteorite rock matrix in the manner of terrestrial assemblages of aquatic benthic, epipelic, and epilithic cyanobacterial communities comprised of species that grow on or in mud or clay sediments. Filamentous cyanobacteria similar in size and detailed morphology with basal heterocysts are well known in benthic cyanobacterial mats, where they attach the filament to the sediment at the interface between the liquid water and the substratum. The size, size range and complex morphological features and characteristics exhibited by these filaments render them recognizable as representatives of the filamentous Cyanobacteriaceae and associated trichomic prokaryotes commonly encountered in cyanobacterial mats. Therefore, the well-preserved mineralized trichomic filaments with carbonaceous sheaths found embedded in freshly fractured interior surfaces of the Alais, Ivuna, and Orgueil CI1 carbonaceous meteorites are interpreted as the fossilized remains of prokaryotic microorganisms that grew in liquid regimes on the parent body of the meteorites before they entered the Earth’s atmosphere.
The Energy Dispersive X-ray spectroscopy data reveals that the filaments detected in the meteorites typically exhibit external sheaths enriched in carbon infilled with minerals enriched in magnesium and sulfur. These results are interpreted as indicating that the organisms died on the parent body while aqueous fluids were present and the internal cells were replaced by epsomite and other water soluble evaporite minerals dissolved in the liquids circulating through the parent body. The nitrogen level in the meteorite filaments was almost always below the detection limit of the EDS detector (0.5% atomic). However, nitrogen is essential for all amino acids, proteins, and purine and pyrimidine nitrogen bases of the nucleotides of all life on Earth.
Extensive EDS studies of living and dead cyanobacteria and other biological materials have shown that nitrogen is detectable at levels between 2% and 18% (atomic) in cyanobacterial filaments from Vostok Ice (82 Kya) and found in stomach milk the mammoth Lyuba (40 Kya); mammoth hair/ tissue (40-32 Kya); pre-dynastic Egyptian and Peruvian mummies (5-2 Kya) and herbarium filamentous diatom sheaths (1815). However, Nitrogen is not detected in ancient biological materials such as fossil insects in Miocene Amber (8 Mya); Cambrian Trilobites from the Wheeler Shale (505 Mya) or cyanobacterial filaments from Karelia (2.7 Gya). Consequently the absence of nitrogen in the cyanobacterial filaments detected in the CI1 carbonaceous meteorites indicates that the filaments represent the remains of extraterrestrial life forms that grew on the parent bodies of the meteorites when liquid water was present, long before the meteorites entered the Earth’s atmosphere. This finding has direct implications to the distribution of life in the Cosmos and the possibility of microbial life in liquid water regimes of cometary nuclei as they travel within the orbit of Mars and in icy moons with liquid water oceans such as Europa and Enceladus.
The author has also submitted the paper to over 100 other leading researchers in the field to review the results and study the meteorites for them selves. We'll see in a couple of months whether the finding are accurate or not.
Last edited: