Claim of alien microbes:
NASA says ‘no support’
Top NASA scientists said Monday there was no scientific evidence to
support a colleague’s claim that fossils of alien microbes born in outer
space had been found in meteorites on Earth.
The US space agency formally distanced itself from the paper by NASA
scientist Richard Hoover, whose findings were published Friday in the
peer-reviewed Journal of Cosmology, which is available free online.
In response, the journal’s managing editor Lana Tao lashed out at
“truly unprofessional and frankly dishonest conduct of various
individual(s) at NASA who have resorted to lies, slander, defamation and
ad hominem attacks.”
“Hysteria and lies do not constitute scientific doubt. They are calls
for medication,” she said in an email.
According to the study, Hoover sliced open fragments of several types
of carbonaceous chondrite meteorites, which can contain relatively high
levels of water and organic materials, and looked inside with a powerful
microscope, Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM).
He found bacteria-like creatures, calling them “indigenous fossils”
that originated beyond Earth and were not introduced here after the
meteorites landed.
“The implications are that life is everywhere, and that life on Earth
may have come from other planets,” the study claimed.
Carl Pilcher, director of NASA’s Astrobiology Institute, described
Hoover as a “NASA employee” who works in a solar physics branch of a lab
in the southeastern state of Alabama.
“That is a claim that Mr Hoover has been making for some years,”
Pilcher told AFP.
“I am not aware of any support from other meteorite researchers for
this rather extraordinary claim that this evidence of microbes was
present in the meteorite before the meteorite arrived on Earth and and
was not the result of contamination after the meteorite arrived on
Earth,” Pilcher said.
“The simplest explanation is that there are microbes in the
meteorites; they are Earth microbes. In other words, they are
contamination.” Pilcher said the meteorites that Hoover studied fell to
Earth 100 to 200 years ago and have been heavily handled by humans, “so
you would expect to find microbes in these meteorites.”
Paul Hertz, chief scientist of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in
Washington, also issued a statement saying NASA did not support Hoover’s
findings.
“While we value the free exchange of ideas, data and information as
part of scientific and technical inquiry, NASA cannot stand behind or
support a scientific claim unless it has been peer-reviewed or
thoroughly examined by other qualified experts,” he said.
He noted that the paper did not complete the peer-review process
after being submitted in 2007 to the International Journal of
Astrobiology.
Studies suggesting that microbes from outer space can be found in
meteorites date back to the 1960s, but have been widely met with
skepticism in the scientific community.
“Unless he has forged those pictures, which I doubt... I cannot
imagine that they can be contaminants,” said Chandra Wickramasinghe, a
Journal of Cosmology editor.
“I know there is skepticism because it is a remarkable discovery if
it is validated,” he told AFP.
“If it is accepted it means that much of the conventional wisdom on
how life started on the Earth has to be revised.”
Wickramasinghe said the research was peer-reviewed by four geologists
and geochemists from Russia and Europe and it gained “positive responses
from three of them.”
The journal invited experts to weigh in on Hoover’s claim, and both
skeptics and supporters began publishing their commentaries on the
journal’s website Monday.
Michael Engel of the University of Oklahoma wrote: “Given the
importance of this finding, it is essential to continue to seek new
criteria more robust than visual similarity to clarify the origin(s) of
these remarkable structures.”
A separate NASA-funded study in December suggested that a previously
unknown form of bacterium, found deep in a California lake, could thrive
on arsenic, adding a new element to what scientists have long considered
the six building blocks of life.
That study drew hefty criticism, particularly after NASA touted the
announcement as evidence of extraterrestrial life. Scientists are
currently attempting to replicate those findings. AFP
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