Hoping to have some interesting dialog on Reddit : http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2ew45f/im_professor_chandra_wickramasinghe_director_of/

Dear Vladimir :  I congratulate you on the recent news on your team’s discovery of living plankton on the outside of the ISS. I would be interested in your comments on the following questions :

1. Can your team explain in more detail the hypothesis that the diatoms rose through the atmosphere to 400 km? How?

2. What are the types of Eukarya already identified ?

3. On any diatoms : how do you believe they are surviving – with the extreme cold, the absence of oxygen and the intense cosmic rays?

4. Have you done (or do you plan to do) RNA/DNA analysis on the diatoms?

5. Are these diatoms all alive, or are some also fossilized or even dessicated?

6. Did your team also do tests to search for viruses, bacteria and archea (alive, dessicated and/or fossilized)?

7. how was the contamination control experiment designed? And did you  eliminate contamination this way?

8. will you be returning samples to Russia to conduct more detailed analysis including using the latest virus and bacteria identification tools?

I believe this discovery, in itself, is already a huge step forward. Just simply the detection of  living diatoms outside the ISS is profound.

The fact that we can return samples to earth for in-depth analysis by the latest virus and bacteria identification systems; and that the diatoms themselves can be tested back on earth for isotopic signatures with electronic microscopes, leads me to believe that within a year this “mystery” will become much clearer.

My expectation is that at that point the Hoyle-Wickramasinghe Model of Panspermia should take yet another step forward as the mostly likely hypothesis for the paradigm that Life is a Cosmic Phenomenon (ie that life exists across the galaxy and universe).

Yours in science

Prof. Chandra Wickramasinghe
Director of the Buckingham Centre for Astrobiology and Honorary Professor, University of Buckingham, UK
Visiting Professor University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

Board Member, Institute for the Study of Panspermia and Astro-economics, Gifu, Japan
Russian translation

Uvazhayemyy Vladimir : YA pozdravlyayu vas s poslednimi novostyami po otkrytiyu vashey komandy zhivykh plankton na vneshney storone MKS . Mne bylo by interesno v kommentariyakh po sleduyushchim voprosam :

1 Mozhet vasha komanda boleye podrobno ob”yasnit’ gipotezu , chto diatomovyye vodorosli vyros v atmosfere do 400 km ?
2 Chto tipy Eukarya uzhe opredelili ?
3 Po lyubym diatomey : kak vy schitayete, oni vyzhivayut – s kholodnoy , nedostatok kisloroda i kosmicheskikh luchey ?
4 Vy sdelali ( ili vy planiruyete delat’ ) analiz RNK / DNK na diatomovykh ?
5 Yavlyayutsya li diatomovyye vse zhivy ili nekotoryye iz nikh takzhe okamenelyye ili dazhe vysu- shennym ?
6 li vashu komandu tozhe testy dlya poiska virusov, bakteriy i arkhey ( zhivoy , vysu- shennym i / ili okamenelykh ) ?
7 , kak bylo eksperiment kontrol’ zagryazneniya prednaznachen ? I ty likvidatsii zagryazneniya takim obrazom?
8 ty vernesh’sya obraztsy v Rossiyu, chtoby provesti boleye detal’nyy analiz , vklyuchaya s ispol’zovaniyem noveyshikh virusov i identifikatsii bakteriy instrumenty ?

YA schitayu, eto otkrytiye samo po sebe uzhe yavlyayetsya ogromnym shagom vpered prosto obnaruzheniya zhivykh diatomey predelami MKS . Tot fakt, chto my mozhem vernut’sya obraztsy na Zemlyu dlya uglublennogo analiza noveyshikh sistem ot virusov i bakteriy identifikatsii ; i diatomovyye vodorosli sami po sebe mogut byt’ provereny na Zemle dlya izotopnykh podpisey i s elektronnymi mikroskopami , privodit menya k mysli , chto v techeniye goda eta ” tayna ” stanet yasno .

YA ozhidayu, chto v etoy tochke Khoyl – Vikramazing Model’ panspermii dolzhny sdelat’ yeshche odin shag vpered v kachestve osnovnom veroyatnogo gipotezy paradigmy , chto zhizn’ kosmicheskoye yavleniye ( to yest’ , chto zhizn’ sushchestvuyet po vsey galaktike i Vselennoy ) .

S uvazheniyem v nauke

Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe
Direktor Bukingemskogo tsentra astrobiologii i pochetnyy professor Bukingemskom universitete , Velikobritaniya
Priglashennym professorom universiteta Peradeniya , Peradeniya , Shri-Lanka
Chlen Pravleniya , Institut po izucheniyu panspermii i Astro- ekonomika , Gifu , Yaponiya

The Daily Mail today reported : “….that traces of plankton and other microorganisms have been found living on the exterior of the International Space Station (ISS), according to Russian space officials.  They claim the plankton were not carried there at launch – but are thought to have been blown there by air currents on Earth. Incredibly, the tiny organisms were found to be able to survive in the vacuum of space despite the freezing temperatures, lack of oxygen and cosmic radiation“.

I think a quick review of this discovery is in order.

First of all let’s review the height of the ISS.  The International Space Station, with ESA’s Columbus laboratory flies 400 km high at speeds that defy gravity – literally.

This is 8 times higher than the very TOP of the stratosphere. or 40 times higher than the top of Mount Everest.  I believe there is no known process where any viruses, bacteria, archaea or even eukarya have been proven to have been raised to anything like that height – even considering volcanos.

Explosive eruption plumes such as those generated at volcanoes like Mt. St. Helens or Pinatubo can reach high into the atmosphere. The highest Mt. St. Helens plume on May 18, 1980 reached about 31 km (101,700 feet), and the highest Pinatubo plume got as far as 45 km (147,600 feet). But we know the ISS is at 400 km.

We do know that rare cloud types have occurred in the mesosphere. But that’s about the highest we are aware of. And they are very, very rare.

The fact is, no matter how we all try to play it down, this is a stunning discovery. And it is consistent with the Panspemia Hypothesis. Certainly this is evidence that will challenge mainstream science as it continues “the difficult endeavor of seeking the signs of life”.

The way these microbes have survived against extreme cold, cosmic rays, and lack of oxygen is very surprising even for myself. I must admit I am glad it is the Russian Scientists doing this analysis.

Is this the result of contamination from countless EVA’s and over 80 ISS flights each one delivering people and equipment with the people being the biggest source of viruses and bacteria given our (now much better understood) symbiotic relationship with these microbes.  It is almost certain that the level of contamination man has caused in  the ISS and space is much greater than science is prepared to acknowledge.

But perhaps it is too early to say this is the very first discovery of ET life. But it will be very interesting to see the RNA/DNA analysis.

I will be toasting Sir Fred Hoyle this evening. Those of us who have calculated that “Life must be a cosmic phenomenon” know this brings us ever closer to the day when science lays to bed the theory that life is unique to the Earth.

This is almost as exciting as the  recent discovery of bacteria which live deep below the earth and feed directly on electrons. More on that next week.

Chandra W.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2728979/Never-mind-alien-life-SEA-PLANKTON-space-Creatures-living-surface-ISS-officials-say.html#ixzz3AtCtzyRJ 

Dirk Schulze-Makuch : The cyanobacteria, diatoms etc you analyzed in the meteorites are ideally adapted to life on Earth, to life on a planetary surface. So, assuming you are correct and they indeed come from space, where is the source? An origin of these organisms in a comet would make no sense for me from an evolutionary biology standpoint as life thrives always to be ideally adapted to its environment.

Richard Hoover :  There are skeptics who claim that even though many of the remains I have found in these meteorites are recognizable as heterocystous cyanobacteria, diatoms, acritarchs, hystrichospheres and other known extant or extinct life forms, they must be modern bio-contaminants. This argument conveniently neglects the fact that the EDAX data consistently show the remains have nitrogen levels below the instrument detection limit and hence died millions of years ago-long before these meteorites were observed to fall to Earth.

Chandra Wickramasinghe : The reason why fossil microbes and diatoms are similar to their modern terrestrial counterparts is that they all came from space in the first place, and continue to do so.  Life on Earth is an expression on the Earth of a Darwinian evolutionary scheme that has taken place over a vast cosmological scale.  Not so long ago it would have been thought impossible to find the same species in opposite hemispheres of the Earth.  The connected biosphere of the Earth has now to be considered connected to a vast cosmological biosphere within which frequent exchanges of genes have established a unity of all life in the cosmos.

Dirk Schulze-Makuch :  I find it very strange that extraterrestrial life would look so similar, or should I say identical to cyanobacteria, diatoms etc as Richard claims. This does not make any sense to me and is in my view so implausible that any contamination such as pointed by John is much more likely. I just discussed this matter with Alberto Fairen and he thinks alike but thought about another possibility: Could Richard’s bugs be terrestrial life that has been for billions of years away from Earth because it was ejected in primitive impacts?

William E. (Bill) Smith : Today the Rosetta Mission approaches  COMET 67P now just 100 km away. 67P’s orbit is in the plane of the galaxy and is “part of our solar system” (ie it is a Kuiper belt “comet” ) with an orbit of just  6 years.  Contrast this with COMET ISON, which unlike 67P (Rosetta), was a parabolic comet. I.E. ISON’s orbit period is unknown (> 100,000 years). It entered the plane of the galaxy at a steep inclination FYI – approximately the same as the angle of the solar system (the ecliptic) to the galaxy’s plane. It is now accepted mainstream science that the solar system is part of the Sagittarius Dwarf galaxy which is colliding with the Milky Way. I believe (educated by conversations with Chandra ) that “long period” comets like ISON are the REAL  source of original life in our Solar System. Ie  ISON was “sling shot” in towards the SUN from an adjacent star. Short period comets which includes both Halley’s Comet with its 80 year orbit and Rosetta (67P/C-G) with its 7 year orbit, might well (and likely do) contain dormant viruses, bacteria and even diatoms (as found by Richard Hoover). These “seeds of life” were catapulted into local inner space from major collisions like the asteroid (or comet) which caused the end of the dinosaur era.

But I believe it is the long period comets like ISON which carry the real interesting and original “seeds of life” from other solar systems across what Chandra Wickramasinghe calls the “vast cosmological biosphere”.

And at this moment in time in August 2014, I wonder how rigorous was our sterilizing of the Rosetta Mission back in 2004. The Philae Lander will arrive on Comet 67P/C-G this November (2014) carrying untold numbers of dormant viruses and bacteria from earth, just waiting to be reactivated by the water that is already proven to be on the comet – proven using the remote spectroscopy by the ALMA telescope in Chile.

Chandra Wickramasinghe : Bill – although you may well be right, it is not a time for negative thoughts. NASA ask us to emphasize that the “search for life is a difficult endeavour”. To that we all agree. BUT what we are now expecting to find (on 67P, MARS, Titan and Enceladus) is that life is found “everywhere”. Do we really care “where it came from originally” or even if we inadvertently delivered it.

Time to agree that “Life is indeed a Cosmic Phenomenon”.

I have collaborated with Gensuke Tokoro of the Institute for the Study of Panspermia and Astroeconomics, Gifu, Japan to produce this paper.

A major paradigm shift with potentially profound implications has been taking place over the past 3 decades at a rapidly accelerating pace. The Copernican revolution of half a millennium ago is now being extended to place humanity on the Earth in its correct cosmic perspective – an assembly of cosmically derived viral genes, no more, no less, pieced together over 4 billion years of geological history against the processes of Darwinian natural selection. The evidence for our cosmic ancestry has now grown to the point that to deny it is a process fraught with imminent danger. We discuss the weight of modern scientific evidence from diverse sources, the history of development of the relevant ideas, and the socio-economic and historical forces that are responsible for dictating the pace of change.

Please feel free to access the full paper through this URL.

In summary we conclude : A paradigm shift of the kind we have discussed in this article may be stalled for seemingly rational reasons based on either prudence or pragmatism:

1. The proposed paradigm shift from Earth-centred life to cosmic-centred life might be perceived as a threat to national security. People may become so scared and emotionally unsettled that even the enforcement of law and order might pose a problem.
2. To admit that we have supported a wrong paradigm may have economic repercussions in regard to the many large funding commitments already in place for exploring ideas based on a wrong premise.
3. An inevitable demand that would follow for re-orientation of existing space programmes would have serious fiscal implications that would need to be kept in mind.
4. It would have to be deemed prudent to monitor the stratosphere for potentially lethal incoming pathogens, and such a world-wide programme would require large budgets as well as new strategies in world health economics.

I am planning a BLOG post in the fall which offers a positive vision for the way forward.

The biological big bang with water oceans 2 million years after the cosmological event is easy to explain by Rudy E. Schild and Carl H. Gibson’s Hydro-Gravitational Dynamics (HDG) cosmology. Old cosmology based on cold dark matter makes life virtually impossible (CHG).  See more here :