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Could life rise in a comet? |
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The News -
Science-Astronomy
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Written by Administrator
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Astrobiologist Chandra Wickramasinghe says that what we're learning about the interior of comets suggests they would be havens for organic (i.e., carbon-based) life. Physicist V.N. Tsytovich wonders if all life-forms must be carbon-based. He finds intriguing lifelike processes among supposedly inert dust particles in interstellar space. Welcome to The Twilight Zone of science, where fact melds with speculation. Scientific knowledge consists of verifiable facts and well-tested theories. But to gain reliable knowledge, scientists often let their imaginations run ahead of what they actually know. Dr. Wickramasinghe at Cardiff University in Wales has pursued this strategy for decades in search of insight into the prospects for life in outer space. He has been particularly interested in the possibility that simple life-forms could originate in space and travel through it – a concept called panspermia. Now he has joined colleagues Bill Napier and Janaki Wickramasinghe in a paper to be published in the International Journal of Astrobiology that lays out the case for life inside comets. Source : USA Today Science
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