Transcript PANSPERMIA:

PANSPERMIA:
NEW VENEREAL DISEASE OR THE
BEGINNINGS OF LIFE ON EARTH?
or
?
Panspermia
• According to the AMA, and good news to men
everywhere, panspermia is not a VD
=
Eric Mazzone Astro 230
?
Panspermia
• According to the AMA, and good news to men
everywhere, panspermia is not a VD
• Actually, it’s a theory about life’s origin from the
cosmos
=
Eric Mazzone Astro 230
?
Panspermia
• According to the AMA, and good news to men
everywhere, panspermia is not a VD
• Actually, it’s a theory about life’s origin from the
cosmos
• Crazy?
=
Eric Mazzone Astro 230
?
• Hypothesized in 1864
that life must have come
from an extraterrestrial
source
• ‘There is no known
circumstance in which it
can be confirmed that
microscopic beings came
into the world without
germs, without parents
similar to themselves’
Louis Pasteur
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The Experiment
• Using a sterile glass
flask, he showed that
cultures cannot be
formed from plain air
• Only after adding
germs to the air would
this form:
Scientific Gold!
Louis Pasteur
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• Can bacteria survive the
long, harsh journey to
Earth?
• Can bacteria then survive
entering Earth’s
atmosphere?
• Finally, can bacteria
survive the impact with
Earth and then flourish?
Eric Mazzone Astro 230
• Found in the most
EXTREME-EME-EME-EME
conditions on Earth
• Can lie dormant for
millions of years
• Able to survive entry
into Earth’s
Atmosphere
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Cometic Tragedy
• Comets are icy, giving the bacteria nourishment
• Cold, which makes them good insulators
• They break up in the atmosphere
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…and then Pasteur said, ‘LET THERE BE
PROOF’, and it was done, and Pasteur was happy
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• It’s a bird; It’s a plane; It’s…the fossil record?
• Life seems to have appeared very rapidly in the
history of the planet
Eric Mazzone Astro 230
• “in a closed system, you can't finish any real
physical process with as much useful energy as
you had to start with — some is always wasted”
Eric Mazzone Astro 230
Tree of Life
• Widely believed that
without new genetic
material, the tree of
life would be
horizontal, not vertical
• New genetic material
from space would
account for the
genetic diversity we
see in early life
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• Panspermia: Were we brought here by comets?
• Well that’s up to you to decide
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