back to article Dormant ALIEN SLIME LIFE frozen in SPEEDING comet will AWAKEN - boffins

Top astrobiologists say that the approaching comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko could be loaded with slumbering alien organisms capable of living on Earth, which will wake up and become active as the frosty spaceball comes nearer and nearer to the Sun. Dr Max Wallace and Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe say that data from the …

  1. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

    This of course raises the possibility that the soon-to-active alien slime colonies of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko might find much of our planet to be prime real estate, ripe for a campaign of interplanetary conquest.

    Who's to say that something like that isn't what happened ~4 billion years ago during the late heavy bombardment, and that we are not the inevitable result (amongst other organisms which we are doing a great job of trying to get rid of).

    1. NomNomNom
      Trollface

      the bible

      1. Loyal Commenter Silver badge
        Happy

        @NomNomNom

        Top trolling!

    2. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

      I'm struggling to understand the downvotes; this is a perfectly reasonable hypothesis - the LHB occurred between 4.1 and 3.8 billion years ago, the earliest evidence we have for life on Earth is from around 3.7 billion years ago. Admittedly 100 million years is a long time, but in geological timescales, there is the blink of an eye between Earth cooling enough to be suited to life, and life cropping up.

      Since current theories, and experiments conducted since the '70s suggest that it is rather difficult to get life going on its own, it doesn't seem totally unreasonable to posit that if life can exist in a dormant state inside a frozen astronomical body such as a comet, then it would only take a small fragment of such a body surviving re-entry intact to deliver such life to a planetary environment.

      We know primitive life can survive inside such an body, because such life can survive in more extreme environments on earth (frozen for millions of years under polar ice, or inside nuclear reactors). We also know that icy meteorites can survive partially intact when colliding with Earth - superheating of the outer layers 'cushions' the interior so that it does not melt.

      Frozen solid inside half a kilometre of ice would also nicely protect any microorganism from the sort of hard radiation found in space, so it is not unreasonable to suppose that if such life found its way into the interior of such a body then it could survive. Of course, the question would then be 'how did it get there', and if we were to find evidence of life in such an environment, this would inevitably suggest that such life is commonplace and abundant in the universe, and raises the further question of its ultimate origin.

      Anyway, my point is, that from a hypothetical point of view, none of this is beyond the bounds of reasonable possibility, unless you happen to subscribe to the 'Earth was created in 6 days' rubbish that the less rational amongst us spout.

      1. Laura Kerr
        Pint

        @Loyal Commenter

        "I'm struggling to understand the downvotes; this is a perfectly reasonable hypothesis"

        I suspect the downvoters are struggling to understand simple logic. I agree with you - it doesn't sound unreasonable, but it does assume that viable lifeforms can survive for a very long time - and that they could tolerate or quickly adapt to the environment they found themselves in following the impact. I'm not saying they can't, BTW.

        Or maybe it was pot luck - we can easily extend your hypothesis to posit that multiple impacts took place, and eventually one of them got lucky.

        Thanks for a very interesting post. Have a pint and an upvote.

      2. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge

        "...experiments....suggest that it is rather difficult to get life going on its own..."

        Exactly. And if life couldn't get started on this perfectly habitable planet then where in the solar system did it start?

        "Frozen solid inside half a kilometre of ice would also nice..."

        You're conflating comets with planetary ejecta (small meteorites).

        FWIW I didn't downvote you. That was the downvote bot.

      3. Stevie

        Bah!

        "Since current theories, and experiments conducted since the '70s suggest that it is rather difficult to get life going on its own, it doesn't seem totally unreasonable to posit that if life can exist in a dormant state inside a frozen astronomical body such as a comet, then it would only take a small fragment of such a body surviving re-entry intact to deliver such life to a planetary environment."

        But then, how did it get started on the comet? This comet theory solves nothing about the "hard to get life started" thingummy, it just pushed the problem horizon further away.

        Plus, shaving with Occam's Razor for a bit tells me that if life can get started on a bleeding comet it can get started oodles easier on a nice warm planet. If there's one thing we can agree about, it should be that getting life started requires energy. Not so much about for the taking on a comet. Lots bombarding the place wantonly on a planet.

      4. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        "the LHB occurred between 4.1 and 3.8 billion years ago, the earliest evidence we have for life on Earth is from around 3.7 billion years ago."

        If life had developed prior to the LHB the evidence for it might not have survived - indeed life might not have survived - so it's not surprising that the first evidence comes later.

        "current theories, and experiments conducted since the '70s suggest that it is rather difficult to get life going on its own"

        It's still difficult to get going even if you suppose it happened elsewhere. I've never found this hypothesis appealing - it smacks of trying to avoid a difficult problem by turning your back on it. I suppose the advantage of the hypothesis is that you can allow a much longer time-span for it to have happened. But as a scientific hypothesis it has the disadvantage of being difficult to falsify - look at a comet & find nothing you have a choice of saying "wrong comet" or "wrong type of comet".

      5. David Pollard

        "... experiments conducted since the '70s suggest that it is rather difficult to get life going on its own."

        On the contrary, although the processes are subtle and probably quite complex it looks to me as though several promising avenues are opening which explain aspects of abiogenisis; including, for example, the work of Jack Szostack and his team.

        http://www.hhmi.org/scientists/jack-w-szostak

        The problem with panspermia is that it still doesn't explain how life started. I'm happy enough with the idea that the potential for life and consciousness is everywhere in the universe without needing to dream up all manner of stories that can't easily be disproved.

        1. Mephistro

          @ David Pollard

          "The problem with panspermia is that it still doesn't explain how life started"

          No, but it explains how it disseminated from its origin point. Which could be in a planet not unlike ours, but placed half a galaxy away, or in places like Europa or Mars in our own solar system, or God knows where.

          We should accept that probably we'll never know for sure. This universe of ours is really good at destroying information.

      6. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        There is no evidence that the earth is 3.7 billion years old. It is only a theory.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Or at least it could explain Millwall fans.

    4. This post has been deleted by its author

  2. Andy The Hat Silver badge

    No news here! Nothing to see! Go back to your homes!

    So, microbes (for which there is *no evidence*) may exist on the comet which is not actually hurtling towards us. And those (non existent) organisms of unknown origin or composition may be able to survive below -40C, exposed to the vacuum of space and the radiation of space ...

    Roll of tin foil and copy of 'Milinery for Scaredy Cats' at the ready ...

    1. Sir Sham Cad

      Re: microbes (for which there is *no evidence*)

      *ahem* From the article:

      "Dr Max Wallace and Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe say that data from the Rosetta probe now in orbit about the comet and the small lander Philae deployed to its surface support their theory"

      What evidence that is, from the article on the RAS site, appears to be the following:

      "Wallis and Wickramasinghe cite further evidence for life in the detection by Philae of abundant complex organic molecules on the surface of the comet and in the infrared images taken by Rosetta."

      Not smoking gun proof but hell, they're doing science - On. A. Comet.

      1. NomNomNom

        Re: microbes (for which there is *no evidence*)

        how do they know it's not just a load of shit?

        1. Martin Budden Silver badge

          Re: microbes (for which there is *no evidence*)

          how do they know it's not just a load of shit?

          Shit basically *is* slimy microbial life. Plus, shit must have been shat by something bigger!

      2. Grikath

        Re: microbes (for which there is *no evidence*)

        Science for a relative value of [Science]...

        Occhams Razor states that complex carbohydrates can, quite easily, be created from some of the more common stuff around in our solar system ( water, methane, ammonia, hydrogen peroxide, nitrous oxide ) as long as you supply energy. And gee-golly, between our sun and Jupiter, that comet gets irradiated hard, so it's really no big surprise it's covered in "organic" goo.

        That, however, is still no indication of life ( even as "cosmic goo" ) .. For that we'd need to find carbon-based molecules which can catalise chemical reactions "against" the entropy gradient, which from all data to date picking apart cellular mechanisms on this rock, means either metallic radicals buffered by deoxiriboses (like the heme structures in our red blood cells, or the exchange-Fe-for-Mg chlorophill in plants.), or short-chain RNAs comparable to rybozimes, at least.

        The heme structure especially is, besides being crucial for anything chemotrophic or phototrophic, very easy to spot: It absorbs specific wavelengths. It's why blood is red, and plants are green. And why this comet should be anything but black if this stuff was present in any amount needed to give credibility to the idea of "life" being present and active there. By now the conditions should be such that any life form suitable for such an environment would be racing to take advantage of the Big Thaw, and would affect the comet's spectral profile.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: microbes (for which there is *no evidence*)

        > Not smoking gun proof

        Not even close. Just some marketing PR puff for the Rosetta/Philae mission.

        "Alien slime" is not the scientific definition of anything. "Alien slime becoming awake when the comet warms up" is the half-baked premise of a plot for a B-grade Sci-Fi movie. It is not science.

        Complex carbohydrates have been found in deep space ever since the late '60's:

        http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/cen-v047n014.p011

        That was in 1969, and the URL is from the American Chemical Society, no less.

        If you search for 'polyaromatic carbohydrates deep space' in Google, you will find more recent, and much more spectacular results. These results do not prove or suggest the existence of life in deep space. At an average temperature of 5K I'd be very interested in learning how life or metabolic processes would even be possible.

        Next Bullshit Topic: let's travel through a black hole and come out on the "other side", intact and still alive.

        1. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

          Re: microbes (for which there is *no evidence*)

          Formaldehyde is somewhat stretching the definition of 'complex carbohydrate', given that it is actually the MOST chemically simple carbohydrate possible, with the formula CH2O.

          What has supposedly been detected on this comet are (amongst other things) polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (which by definition have at least ten carbon atoms in them (the simplest PAH being naphthalene which consists of two fused six-member rings).

          Also, blasting something with hard radiation is generally considered to be a better way of making things fall apart than stick together. An analogy might be to consider what happens if you put together a bag of flour, bag of sugar and some eggs and shoot them with a shotgun - you don't generally tend to get a cake.

          Admittedly, none of this is anywhere near a remotely definitive proof of extraterrestrial life. However, if we were to find actual complex carbohydrates (the definition of which is generally considered to be multiple sugar molecules chemically linked together), it would be extremely difficult to posit that they have been produced by anything other than life, as we know of no non-life based chemical process which could produce them.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: microbes (for which there is *no evidence*)

            > What has supposedly been detected on this comet are (amongst other things) polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons

            Old news:

            http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn4552-space-molecules-point-to-organic-origins.html

            This is from 2004, and after spending exactly 25 seconds searching in Google.

        2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
          Alien

          Re: microbes (for which there is *no evidence*)

          "Alien slime becoming awake when the comet warms up" is the half-baked premise of a plot for a B-grade Sci-Fi movie.

          That's no way to talk about The Quatermass Experiment you sacrilegious heathen!

          Anyway the chances of anything coming from Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko are a million to one, he said.

      4. Stoneshop

        Re: microbes (for which there is *no evidence*)

        Not smoking gun proof but hell, they're doing science - On. A. Comet.

        In spaaaaaaaace!

  3. Ralph the Wonder Llama
    Alien

    I, for one, welcome our slimy alien overlords...

    ...and so on and so forth.

    1. zebthecat

      Re: I, for one, welcome our slimy alien overlords...

      Blimey! It's The Blob!

      1. ravenviz Silver badge
        Coffee/keyboard

        The Blob

        Soon up for a remake starring Samuel L Jackson!

        1. Roj Blake Silver badge

          Re: The Blob

          "I've had it with this m..."

  4. Bob Wheeler
    Alien

    Isn't alien slime....

    just one evolutionary step away from politicians?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Isn't alien slime....

      Going which way?

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

  5. Primus Secundus Tertius

    Creative Headlines

    Give the el Reg journos a break. This headline may keep them going until the next BOFH time.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This whole panspermia idea...

    ... is a crock of alien slime. It doesn't solve the problem of how life first evolved , it just removes it to some vague handwaving "out there" location. Well "out there" isn't particularly conducive to the existence of the complex biological machinery and energy gradients we find on earth and given the temperature in deep space any biochemical precursor chemistry that did happen would probably happen orders of magnitude slower than a on warm wet earth. Life almost certainly evolved on earth.

    1. AbelSoul

      Re: This whole panspermia idea...

      "doesn't solve the problem of how life first evolved"

      Nor does it claim to.

      "Life almost certainly evolved on earth."

      Indeed it did but that doesn't require that it also began here.

      FWIW, I tend to agree with you that I think life probably began here without the involvement of panspermia. However, I don't have very much to base that on, other than "seems right" and certainly cannot rule out the possibility that we originated somewhere else.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: This whole panspermia idea...

        Do either of you have any particular reason for believing that life "almost certainly" originated on earth?

        I would have thought that with the current state of knowledge we have no good evidence either way. It would presumably help if we could find habitable environments elsewhere in the solar system and discover whether they are (a) uninhabited, (b) inhabited by organisms that are related to earth organisms, or (c) inhabited by organisms that are unrelated to earth organisms.

    2. hplasm
      Headmaster

      Re: This whole panspermia idea...

      "Life almost certainly evolved on earth."

      Ah- you're confusing and conflating 'started' and 'evolved' Even the godsquads get a look-in on that error..

    3. Killing Time

      Re: This whole panspermia idea...

      Its not just 'out there' but 'out when'. A couple of star system generations to evolve the precursor biological processes, interspersed with periods of stasis while the next system is formed and 'colonized'. This give's far more time and scope for the initial processes to establish.

      The more we understand about extremophiles in our own enviroment and the spread of organic molecules through the local system and beyond, gives weight that it's a feasible extension of the evolution theory.

      Organic compounds are turning up every where we look. What's the odds that New Horizons picks up some indications as it piles through the Pluto system in the next few weeks.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: This whole panspermia idea...

        " A couple of star system generations to evolve the precursor biological processes, interspersed with periods of stasis while the next system is formed and 'colonized'. This give's far more time and scope for the initial processes to establish."

        The universe is "only" 14 billion years old. Thats actually not a long time for life to evolve somewhere else, hitch a ride on some convenient rock blasted off its planet (or out of its nebula) by some massive event that gives it enough energy to escape the gravitation pull of its local star, and just happen to travel through interseller space and conveniently land on a nice habitable planet (having avoided getting cooked on atmospheric entry). The odds against that happening are pretty damn high.

        Occams razor - life started here.

    4. NomNomNom

      Re: This whole panspermia idea...

      I think life is created inside stars

      1. hplasm
        Coat

        Re: This whole panspermia idea...

        "I think life is created inside stars."

        It's life, Nom, but not as we know it.

  7. Crisp

    I've seen this movie...

    It eats Olin Howland.

  8. Six_Degrees

    Chandra Wickramasinghe has a long, sad history as an utter loon. He also believes that creationism is science.

    1. Werner McGoole

      Indeed. He has plenty of form when it comes to over-hyping things in an alien-life-on-comets direction, not to say bending the evidence a bit to fit on occasion. Organic molecules on comets have been known for many years, but that doesn't equate to life. It's probably best not to jump to any conclusions about the latter without pretty firm evidence.

    2. Daedalus

      Re:

      Wickramasinghe's theories may be out there, but he is no loon. I have been to academic seminars he has given. He deserves respect even if he is wrong.

  9. jonathan1
    Mushroom

    Wait...I'm seen the film Species...

    The alien slime results in horny alien hybrids bent on breeding a new species of life on the planet. They tend to kill those that get in their way.

    Nuke them from orbit its the only way to be sure*...

    I'm aware that quote is from a different 'Alien' film ;o).

    1. hplasm
      Happy

      Re: Wait...I'm seen the film Species...

      Aye Sir! - Er, is that from our orbit, their orbit, or some other orbit? Targeting computer's a bit fussy...

    2. Mark 85

      Re: Wait...I'm seen the film Species...

      They'll only kill the men. It's the women they want. Although when they get to the "reality star" section of that selection, they may run away.

  10. Arachnoid

    Quick.........

    Fire up the anti-ballistic comet destroying extraterrestrial fission generators and someone fill up the damn Coffee machine its going to be a long night.

    1. Andy The Hat Silver badge

      Re: Quick.........

      "Quick.........

      Fire up the anti-ballistic comet destroying extraterrestrial fission generators and someone fill up the damn Coffee machine its going to be a long night."

      ... and don't forget to swap the light bulb ...

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The other way round is probably more plausible

    Could we have infected the comet? I'm sure some precautions are taken to make the equipment clean, but will it be sterile?

  12. phil dude
    Boffin

    life of some sort is probably inevitable....

    ...given enough time.

    Less time if the right temperature, or if there is liquid water. But any mathematical model of evolution processes will show you once you can make any molecular copy with random interactions, even a low probability of fidelity it will rapidly converge onto an improving solution.

    The issue of alien life, is not whether it exists, as we know life exists somewhere (here!). We might not even recognise it...

    But whether it exists within our time-space event horizon...given how much of the universe we can not observe.

    P.

    PS We do of course we need supernovae to make the heavy atoms, but I am arguing that the evolutionary process is very powerful and therefore life of some form is inevitable.

    1. Johndoe888

      Re: life of some sort is probably inevitable....

      'PS We do of course we need supernovae to make the heavy atoms, but I am arguing that the evolutionary process is very powerful and therefore life of some form is inevitable.'

      Transuranic heavy elements may not be used where there is life. Medium atomic weights are available: Gold, Lead, Copper, Jet, Diamond, Radium, Sapphire, Silver and Steel. Sapphire and Steel have been assigned.

      1. phil dude

        Re: life of some sort is probably inevitable....

        thumbs up for obscure seventies tv reference ;-)

        Heavy atoms are everything that is not Hydrogen....For life on Earth we need C,O,N,S,P,H and occasionally Fe,Va,Se etc....

        P.

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: life of some sort is probably inevitable....

          "Fe,Va,Se"

          Isn't she the triple breasted bartender at Regulus Port?

  13. EL Vark

    Somebody call Quatermass!

    Or, wait, that never ends well for anyone, does it? I say nuke it. It's the only way to be sure.

    1. David Pollard

      Re: Somebody call Quatermass!

      Sadly they don't make boffins like that any more.

  14. Johndoe888

    The chances of anything coming from mars stars are a million to one he said.

    On the fourteenth day I went into the kitchen, and I was surprised to find that the fronds of the red weed had grown right across the hole in the wall, turning the half-light of the place into a crimson-coloured obscurity.

  15. Simon Harris

    The timing wasn't just coincidence.

    Saturday 13th June: Philae wakes up.

    Monday 15th June: The Clangers start broadcasting.

    I think we've found our alien organisms.

    1. Stevie

      Re: The timing wasn't just coincidence.

      Dear god, we defunded the Large Array of Swanee Whistles a quarter of a century ago too. We are doomed!

  16. aregross
    Thumb Up

    The 'Comments' section is always the best part of the article and this one is no exception...!

    Thanxs All!

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    >"Top astrobiologists"

    AHHHH HAHA HAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAAHHAHA

    HA HAHAHAHAHAHAHA AHHHHH HAHAHAHAHAAAAAH HAHAHAHAHA

    HAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA HAHA

    HAHA HAAAAAAHAHAAAHAHAHAHAAHAHAAAHAAHAHAAHAHAHAA

    STOPPITYOU'REKILLINGME!

  18. Ilmarinen
    Alien

    "more hospitable to micro-life than our Arctic and Antarctic regions"

    Err... apart from the hard vaccuum that is.

  19. John Savard

    Chandra Wickramasinghe is well-known as a supporter of Fred Hoyle's theories about panspermia, which have not yet won general acceptance in the scientific community. Thus, this news item is not likely to fill too many scientists with dread about the possibility of a looming plague. None the less, the Universe is a big place, and while contamination by alien life is unlikely to be a common thing, it's still a real possibility, so some degree of caution is reasonable.

  20. E 2

    It is all supposition.

    1. Arachnoid

      It is all supposition.

      Until it becomes inserted into the rectum then it becomes a suppository

  21. Lamb0
    Alien

    ISS could be in BIG TROUBLE!

    It's not The Quatermass Experiment, The Blob, Species, or Alien(s).

    Beware of The Green Slime!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g79_ljVC5Wk

  22. Captain DaFt

    "This of course raises the possibility that the soon-to-active alien slime colonies of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko might find much of our planet to be prime real estate, ripe for a campaign of interplanetary conquest."

    Um... Nope.

    You see, Earth has one really big obstacle to overcome for simple life forms that didn't evolve here - free oxygen.

    It simply doesn't exist normally in nature, the pesky gas is just too reactive, it bonds with damn near anything.

    We breath it because some prehistoric organism started farting it out as a metabolic byproduct on our World, and for the rest, it was adapt or die.*

    Seeing as how Oxygen is not of the free gasses detected on the comet, any lifeform that somehow migrates to Earth from there will simply not be able to survive our corrosive atmosphere.

    *As a side note, adapting to metabolize oxygen really speeds up the old metabolism, and gives you the competitive edge on those sluggish methane and sulphur dioxide breathers**.

    **Not to be taken as a slur against methane and/or sulphur dioxide breathers. Many of my best friends are anaerobic!

  23. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    Cheers, and let's have a quite quiet drink to this and that.

    This of course raises the possibility that the soon-to-active alien slime colonies of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko might find much of our planet to be prime real estate, ripe for a campaign of interplanetary conquest. … Lewis Page

    A pint or two and a chat on the parallel reality of a savvy IT campaign registering an interplanetary conquest and unstoppable virtual defeat of all and/or any earlier established globalised alienating practices would not be a cock and bull tale to report on with future information, after a Clerk and Well visit this coming Friday afternoon, Lewis, be that the localised watering hole/nearest field office for sensitive communications?

    Advanced IntelAIgents be in the area then, testing fields and searching out forces familiarised and constantly upgrading performance parameters with proper preparations preventing piss poor performance/sub-prime continuity of politically inept progress.

    There a lot going on out there and all of it, and especially so in IT circles, far from normal.

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