Planet Formation and Panspermia. Группа авторов

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[1.15] speculated on the possibility of life transport by meteors. Lord Kelvin [1.9], discussed the possibility of panspermia in his Presidential Address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science. At the beginning of the next century, Swedish physicist/chemist Svante August Arrhenius (1908) presented his book on the panspermia theory [1.2]. There is a long history from before this time through the last century of claims of finding life in meteorites [1.6]. Astronomical sciences also developed significantly during this period to the point where we can observe gravitational waves from merging black holes, which was hardly imaginable just a few decades ago, and visualize black holes. With the discovery of many exoplanets astrobiology has matured as a scientific discipline. A tentative discovery of the intergalactic meteor particle in 2007 [1.1] and recent discoveries of an anomalous object ‘‘Oumuamua [1.11] and comet 2I/Borisov [1.8], that appear to have visited us from outside the Solar system, point out that our planet and its host star may not be an isolated island, in an otherwise lifeless universe. They are likely to exchange matter with the other stars from their vicinity as probably is the case with other stellar systems too, perhaps containing life. There is currently a bias that any such panspermia, if they exist, are prokaryotes [1.13] [1.16] or rugged, microscopic Eukaryotes [1.14].

      In times when a number of exciting new discoveries are made and the new ones seem to be just around the corner, the millenia old panspermia hypothesis has not yet matured into a full fledged theory and some of its aspects might still not have been envisioned. Along the lines of scientific falsificationism, we can consider that no evidence against panspermia are found to date and that much of the controversy still remains [1.12]. The search is even more active in the opposite direction but still there is an evident lack of convincingly non-terrestrial microorganisms on Solar system bodies other than Earth. The recent experiments with micro-organisms exposed to space conditions at the International Space Station offer accumulating evidence that these organisms can withstand the harsh conditions of open space for long periods of time while preserving their biological potential. Even more, there are mounting concerns that human made space vehicles can spread life from our biosphere to other bodies of the Solar system, the most recent one being that the Israeli space mission that transported tardigrades to the Moon [1.17].

      While panspermia is related to microorganisms and small scale processes on one end, on the other end, the transport of material depends on environmental conditions in galaxies. The evolution of galaxies depends on the interaction of galaxies within galaxy clusters and the overall evolution of matter in the universe. The galaxies are the main building blocks of our universe, analogous to cells in a human body. The stars and their planets are condensed from the clouds of galactic gas and dust that are rich in organics. The process of planetary formation is at the middle among the above stated scales that are relevant for panspermia. Starting from planetary formation, studies can go in either direction, to larger or smaller scales, to investigate phenomena that could spread life.

       Branislav Vukotić

       Richard Gordon

       Joseph Seckbach

      September 1, 2021

      [1.1] Afanasiev, V.L., Kalenichenko, V.V., Karachentsev, I.D., Detection of an intergalactic meteor particle with the 6-m telescope. Astrophys. Bull., 62, 4, 301–310, 2007.

      [1.2] Arrhenius, S., Worlds in the Making; the Evolution of the Universe, Harper, New York, 1908.

      [1.3] Berzelius, J.J., Analysis of the Alais meteorite and implications about life in other worlds. Ann. Chem. Pharm., 10, 134–135, 1834.

      [1.4] Chyba, C.F., Extraterrestrial amino acids and terrestrial life. Nature, 348, 6297, 113–114, 1990.

      [1.5] Gordon, R., Are we on the cusp of a new paradigm for biology? The illogic of molecular developmental biology versus Janus-faced control of embryogenesis via differentiation waves. BioSystems (Waves Fertilization, Cell Division Embryogenesis, Guest Editors: Jack Tuszynski, Luigia Santella & Richard Gordon), 203, 104367, 2021.

      [1.6] Gordon, R. and McNichol, J., Recurrent dreams of life in meteorites, in: Genesis - In the Beginning: Precursors of Life, Chemical Models and Early Biological Evolution, J. Seckbach (Ed.), pp. 549–590, Springer, Dordrecht, 2012.

      [1.7] Gurzadyan, V.G., Kolmogorov complexity, string information, panspermia, and the Fermi paradox. Observatory, 125, 1189, 352–355, 2005.

      [1.8] Guzik, P., Drahus, M., Rusek, K., Waniak, W., Cannizzaro, G. and Pastor-Marazuela, I., Initial characterization of interstellar comet 2I/Borisov. Nat. Astron., 4, 53–57.

      [1.9] Kelvin, L., On the Origin of Life. Excerpt. From the Presidential Address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, held at Edinburgh, 1871, https://zapatopi.net/kelvin/papers/on_the_origin_of_life.html.

      [1.10] Lem, S., His Master’s Voice, Northwestern University Press, Evanston, Illinois, USA, 1999.

      [1.12] McNichol, J. and Gordon, R., Are we from outer space? A critical review of the panspermia hypothesis, in: Genesis - In the Beginning: Precursors of Life, Chemical Models and Early Biological Evolution, J. Seckbach (Ed.), pp. 591–619, Springer, Dordrecht, 2012.

      [1.13] Ott, E., Kawaguchi, Y., Kölbl, D., Rabbow, E., Rettberg, P., Mora, M., Moissl-Eichinger, C., Weckwerth, W., Yamagishi, A., Milojevic, T., Molecular repertoire of Deinococcus radiodurans after 1 year of exposure outside the International Space Station within the Tanpopo mission. Microbiome, 8, 1, 150, 2020.

      [1.14] Persson, D., Halberg, K.A., Jørgensen, A., Ricci, C., Møbjerg, N., Kristensen, R.M., Extreme stress tolerance in tardigrades:

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