Microbial Life and Comets

[dryson]

This thread is related to the topic Containminating Earth with Mar's Microbial's.

Perhaps the reason why life can continue to live in the seemingless void of space where one would think that because of the lack of oxygen that is present on Earth for life to exist a new idea must be presented to try and understand how life would continue to live while taking a ride on the surface of a probe. Take a look at how an ant breathes. The ant absorbs oxygen through it's exoskeleton the ant does not breathe but absorbs. A microbial lifeform that has lived in space for millions of years would have evolved in such a manner of absorbing any bits of oxygen that it would collect on it's silica.

How the lifeform would collect the oxygen would be fairly simple. As a comet passes through a solar system the sun would heat the comet up thus releasing steam from the comet that the microbial would then collect and use for energy production to keep the microbial alive.

The same idea as stated above could be a way for life to travel across millions of light years riding on the comet. The microbial would ride on the comet until either the comet slammed into the planet or moon and spread the microbials across the planet or moons surface. The microbial's would then either perish or survive and evolve due to the environmental conditions of the planet, where if the planet had enough water on it the microbials would have enough energy to continue to grow. As each microbial died the gases that would be released from the decomposition of the microbial would add to the atmosphere. Eventually over million's of years life would have evolved to the conditions of the planet similar to the way that Ardi evolved here on Earth.

http://www.newscientist.com/gallery/dn17894-ardi-an-in-depth-look - Ardi

[Shpaget]

Or life could start on Earth and there would be no need for asteroids, meteors and such.
How did those microbes get on board a comet in the first place?

[MeteorWayne]

This topic is not related to SETI, so will be moved to Space Science and Astronomy.

[origin]

Perhaps the reason why life can continue to live in the seemingless void of space where one would think that because of the lack of oxygen that is present on Earth for life to exist a new idea must be presented to try and understand how life would continue to live while taking a ride on the surface of a probe. Take a look at how an ant breathes. The ant absorbs oxygen through it's exoskeleton the ant does not breathe but absorbs. A microbial lifeform that has lived in space for millions of years would have evolved in such a manner of absorbing any bits of oxygen that it would collect on it's silica.

All aerobic microbes on earth absorb oxygen through their cell walls. What does silica have to do with microbes?

You aren't surprised that single celled animals don't tyipically have lungs are gills are you?

edit for spelling

[dryson]

Or life could start on Earth and there would be no need for asteroids, meteors and such.
How did those microbes get on board a comet in the first place?

The notion that you speak of is based on your viewpoint of the Sun and the entire Universe including life coming from Earth which Copernicus and Galileo have both debased as being only biblical referance's instead of tested and proven fact.'s.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/ce/2/part1.html

Life did start on Earth per evolution, where microbials evolved to the present day species that are part of the planet which is based on how the species were able to adapt to their environment and advance in thought past the basic necessities of ingesting the enivornment for energy to fuel their biological system's. Reproduction, which is based on the same evolutionary theory of only the strong survive, is not paramont to the survival of the individual itself but is paramont to the survival of the group as a whole.

Jill Mikucki from Harvard University discovered life in Blood Falls a few years ago. It took her several years to get a sample of water from it, but when she did so, an analysis of its chemical composition revealed that its bacterial community have lived a truly sheltered existence. For millennia, the Blood Falls bacteria have been trapped underground with no nutrients coming in from the outside world. How do they survive? Again, the water provides a clue. It's very rich in sulphate ions (SO42-), which many bacteria can use as an energy source.

That seemed like a plausible explanation for the bacteria's survival, but something didn't add up. Bacteria typically subsist off sulphate ions through a chemical reaction that converts them into sulphide ions (S2-). These can usually be detected as hydrogen sulphide, but Mikucki couldn't find any hydrogen sulphide in the water. And in the genomes of the bacteria, she couldn't find any traces of the group of genes (dsrA) that would normally catalyse this reaction. She even found, by analysing the proportion of different sulphur isotopes, that the overall levels of sulphate ions in the water hadn't fallen for millions of years.

The bacteria must have some way of recycling their energy source. Mikucki suggests that they do so using a unique system, where they reduce sulphate to sulphite (SO32-) instead. The sulphite then reacts with iron (which the glacier scours from the underlying rock), and is oxidised back into sulphate, replenishing the original supply. The bacteria do this with a special enzyme called PAPS, or phosphoadenosine-5'-phosphosulphate-reductase, to give it its fuller, catchier name!

This system may be unique, but that's only because life beneath glaciers has hardly been studied. Perhaps such ecosystems were commonplace during Snowball Earth periods when much of the planet was covered in ice. And perhaps many similar communities exist elsewhere beneath the planet's glaciers. After all, Mikucki notes that iron is such an abundant part of the Earth's crust that it's entirely possible that other bacterial ecosystems have adapted to survive on little else besides it and sulphate ions.

http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/04/blood_falls_-_bacteria_thrive_for_millions_of_years_beneath.php

Based on the finding above it can be theorized that if microbial's could survive in the extremes as cited above then microbial's would have the ability to survive on a comet where they would ingest the particles of energy that comprise the comet to sustain theirself.

How did those microbes get on board a comet in the first place?

This is a tricky one. If you read in the above cited article about the mention of the bacteria feeding off of ions, which are energetic particles then a link can be made to how a microbial may form.

Let's say for instance that an ion is trapped within a group of particles. The ion's energetic properties interact with the group of particles or the medium that the ion is contained within. The medium could be molecules where the biological molecules did not produce a energetic particle but formed a non energetic group of particles around the ion where the ion's energy was then used by the biological molecules. The result of the symbiotic relationship between biological and energetic particles would then have given the biological system the ability to use the energetic properties of the ion to fuel the cellular split of the biological particles that would bring about new generations of cells that would have incorporated the old information of the biological cells as it related to consuming the ion for the purposes of providing energy to the cells as well as storing the excess energy consumed for later use when needed. During this process there would have been other biological systems that would have fed off of the electrons or negative charge's given off by each type of atom. When these particles not through thought but due to the process of how like charges repell each other and opposite charges attract each other, encountered the opposite charge of a particular cell they would attached theirself to the cell and would begin feeding off other cells energy. When this occured the normal patterns of the cellular group on a whole started to be become destablized or in laymans terms nervous because the system as a whole was being affected in a unusual manner that was different from what each suquential generation of cells that came before it had determined as a normal course of how the energy was used. The cellular group would then not have sent any white cells to counteract the invasion based on choice but would have been based off of the energy in the cells that would have been attracted to the negatively charged particle that was leaching off of the active cell. When the postive cells encountered the negative cells the postive cells would have been in far more numbers then negative cell and would have killed the cellular membrane around the anti-particle, thus allowing the anti-particle or negatively charged particle to escape the body. The result would be that the biological body or human in this case would then get rid of the diffused particles biological cell in the form of snot or mucious. Maybe this is the reason why there are so many forms of the common cold virus across the planet. Maybe the cellular attachment of the biological particles that consume the energy from the different electron's in their orbit would create a different type of cold virus everytime based upon the number of electrons from the atom that the biological consumed for energy sustainance. Just an idea.

[dryson]

All aerobic microbes on earth absorb oxygen through their cell walls. What does silica have to do with microbes?

You aren't surprised that single celled animals don't tyipically have lungs are gills are you?

edit for spelling

Microbes on Earth would have evolved one way, while others on a comet, moon or other planet would have evolved based upon the environmental conditions and readily available energy that they could absorb to sustain their biological structure's

[origin]

Let's say for instance that an ion is trapped within a group of particles. The ion's energetic properties interact with the group of particles or the medium that the ion is contained within. The medium could be molecules where the biological molecules did not produce a energetic particle but formed a non energetic group of particles around the ion where the ion's energy was then used by the biological molecules. The result of the symbiotic relationship between biological and energetic particles would then have given the biological system the ability to use the energetic properties of the ion to fuel the cellular split of the biological particles that would bring about new generations of cells that would have incorporated the old information of the biological cells as it related to consuming the ion for the purposes of providing energy to the cells as well as storing the excess energy consumed for later use when needed. During this process there would have been other biological systems that would have fed off of the electrons or negative charge's given off by each type of atom. When these particles not through thought but due to the process of how like charges repell each other and opposite charges attract each other, encountered the opposite charge of a particular cell they would attached theirself to the cell and would begin feeding off other cells energy. When this occured the normal patterns of the cellular group on a whole started to be become destablized or in laymans terms nervous because the system as a whole was being affected in a unusual manner that was different from what each suquential generation of cells that came before it had determined as a normal course of how the energy was used. The cellular group would then not have sent any white cells to counteract the invasion based on choice but would have been based off of the energy in the cells that would have been attracted to the negatively charged particle that was leaching off of the active cell. When the postive cells encountered the negative cells the postive cells would have been in far more numbers then negative cell and would have killed the cellular membrane around the anti-particle, thus allowing the anti-particle or negatively charged particle to escape the body. The result would be that the biological body or human in this case would then get rid of the diffused particles biological cell in the form of snot or mucious. Maybe this is the reason why there are so many forms of the common cold virus across the planet. Maybe the cellular attachment of the biological particles that consume the energy from the different electron's in their orbit would create a different type of cold virus everytime based upon the number of electrons from the atom that the biological consumed for energy sustainance. Just an idea.

Holy crap! If a biologist were to read this I'll be his head would explode real good! I just took a couple biology courses and I almost ruptured an ear drum...

[dryson]

Different environmental systems will result in the cells and life evolving differently, do you not agree or is the theory of life based soley on a single viewpoint that life would have evolved based on the singular viewpoint associated with that if life were to have evolved on other planet's, then life would have had to evolve based on the criteria for how life evolved on Earth?

[MeteorWayne]

Can you rephrase that in a coherent sentence or two?

[kg]

[quote="dryson"]This thread is related to the topic Containminating Earth with Mar's Microbial's.

Perhaps the reason why life can continue to live in the seemingless void of space where one would think that because of the lack of oxygen that is present on Earth for life to exist a new idea must be presented to try and understand how life would continue to live while taking a ride on the surface of a probe....
... A microbial lifeform that has lived in space for millions of years would have evolved in such a manner of absorbing any bits of oxygen that it would collect on it's silica....
http://www.newscientist.com/gallery/dn17894-ardi-an-in-depth-look - Ardi[/quot]

Pure oxygen is not an essential ingredient for microbial life on earth. For much of earth’s early history anaerobic ruled the planet. It wasn’t until the rise of cyanobacteria (thought to be the first photosynthisizing organism on earth) that pure oxygen even existed in the atmosphere. O2 is a poison to anaerobic bacteria which now survive in bogs, septic tanks, landfills and other places without oxygen.
Also, life as we know it does not get oxygen from water.

[dryson]

Pure oxygen is not an essential ingredient for microbial life on earth. For much of earth’s early history anaerobic ruled the planet. It wasn’t until the rise of cyanobacteria (thought to be the first photosynthisizing organism on earth) that pure oxygen even existed in the atmosphere. O2 is a poison to anaerobic bacteria which now survive in bogs, septic tanks, landfills and other places without oxygen.
Also, life as we know it does not get oxygen from water.

Im not talking about microbials on Earth, I am talking about microbials on the surface of a comet, that because science has found microbials to be able to survive in extreme cold weather then a microbial would be able to survive on the sruface of a comet where the microbial would have evolved to intake what ever oxygen it could from the elements that comprised the comet. Life would not have evolved on a comet the same as it would have evolved on Earth. Different environmental conditions dictate how life would evovle in two different environmental systems.

[yevaud]

Hold up. Life wouldn't have developed on the surface of a Comet at all. It's an extreme and harsh environment, and entirely antithetical to life developing. Much more likely is that it would be the fossil remnant of whatever life might have developed as a part of a much larger body that was later fractured into various free bodies, including said comet.

[kg]

Im not talking about microbials on Earth, I am talking about microbials on the surface of a comet, that because science has found microbials to be able to survive in extreme cold weather then a microbial would be able to survive on the sruface of a comet where the microbial would have evolved to intake what ever oxygen it could from the elements that comprised the comet. Life would not have evolved on a comet the same as it would have evolved on Earth. Different environmental conditions dictate how life would evovle in two different environmental systems.

If you are saying that microbial life in a comet would need free oxygen for respiration then thats simply not true.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anerobic_respiration
It seems that liquid water or some other sort of solvent is the most crucial ingrediant for life.

[orienteer]

Why are we assuming that comets are rocky? I believe there are several comets that are primarily ice, which is a nice home for many life forms. There are fish, frogs and a few other vertebrates that can go into suspended animation during winter. Why not microbes. So a comet of ice develops life while it is near a planet and the gravity heats the core to water, As the comet exits the sphere of influence, it freezes and the life goes dormant inside of the comet (read spaceship) until being heated by gravitational pulling at the next planet, or by friction when entering the atmosphere.

[jerrycobbs]

Most of the comments here seem to assume that microbial life on a comet would continue in some kind of active state with respiration, reproduction, etc. It seems more likely to me that lifeforms on a comet would be in some kind of suspended animation or spore state until they encountered a planet or large moon with sufficient energy and resources for them to resume growth. The recent experiments with tardigrades in space as well as studies of fossilized remains in amber suggest that this is not at all beyond the realm of possibility.

[portugal]

May be the problem here should be "What is Life?".
For our understanding, Life can only exists if there is hydrogen involved. And we just consider carbon based life.
But what if the universe is full of life... but they are not carbon based?
The problem would be the same... "What is Life?".

This is a bigger problem than what the astronomers association had with demoting Pluto from his Planet Status... on that they just needed to present a sentence that the other ones would vote... with Life there is the probation needed and, for now, we are only touching a small point of the possible Life.

[Karl296]

Microbesicles hibernate until they are thawed out. If liver flukes can survive in frozen cadavers for hundreds of years in Tierra del Fuego, microbesicles should be able to last indefinitely in the cold of space.

[Bill_Wright]

Or life could start on Earth and there would be no need for asteroids, meteors and such.
How did those microbes get on board a comet in the first place?

Great question! How do we know we are not unique? Statistics? Statistics would dictate that I would have born a woman (51:49) in Asia and would never have met my wife, yet we are in the 28th year of our honeymoon. The question that started this thread is interesting but let's face it we might never get to know if there is life elsewhere, let alone its origins. Practically speaking we should probably be working on making all the lives on Earth better rather than trying to find the answer to a question that while satisfying our need to know has no practical application. Having said that I am certainly not the smartest guy in the world (or this thread) so keep on seeking answers.

[doc_bugsy]

And just what would a microbe, supposing it managed to hitch a ride on a comet in the first place, do for energy during the 99% of the time the comet spends frozen harder than steel in deep space?

[doc_bugsy]

...Practically speaking we should probably be working on making all the lives on Earth better rather than trying to find the answer to a question that while satisfying our need to know has no practical application...

If we were satisfied with being practical and maintaining the status quo, we would still be hiding from predators in caves and climbing trees for food.