INTERPLANET

SCIENTISTS WHO BY
ONCE CONFIDENTLY PAUL
THOUGHT OF DAVIES
EARTH AS THE
ILLUSTRATION BY
CRADLE OF LIFE JON LOMBERG
ARE TAKING A
CRITICAL LOOK
AT THE THEORY
KNOWN AS
PANSPERMIA

1999 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

ARY
INFESTATIONS
n 1871 the famous Scottish physicist Lord Kelvin addressed a meeting of the British
Association in Edinburgh on the subject of extraterrestrial life. During the lecture he speculated
that from time to time an astronomical body might strike a planet with enough force to blast de-
bris into space. As a result many great and small fragments carrying

seed and living plants and animals

would undoubtedly be scattered through
space. . . . If at the present instant no
life existed upon this earth, one such
stone falling on it might . . . lead to its
becoming covered with vegetation.
Kelvins conjecture proved to be remarkably pre- bacteria are similar in size to cometary dust particles and
scient. One hundred twenty-five years later, President interstellar grains, over a long period they could be accel-
Bill Clinton faced the worlds press and announced that erated to very high speeds by sunlight or starlight. Al-
NASA scientists had evidence of life on Mars, gleaned though it may take millions of years for a microbe to
from a potato-size chunk of Martian rock discovered in reach another stellar system, the universe is many billions
Antarctica. Although this meteorite, code-named ALH of years old, so there has been plenty of time for bacteria
84001, contains at best only fossilized Martian mi- to become disseminated around the galaxy in this man-
crobes, that announcement three years ago proved to be ner. Arrhenius envisaged bacteria swarming across in-
a defining moment for the fledgling field of astrobiolo- terstellar space, seeding life on any suitable planets they
gy. Obviously, if rocks can be exchanged between plan- encountered, including Earth. He called his theory
ets, then there is a chance that life can be too. panspermia, meaning seeds everywhere.
Lord Kelvins idea of plant seeds surviving a journey Over the ensuing decades the panspermia theory fell
through outer space is probably unrealistic. However, a out of favor. Partly this was because it left the ultimate
more plausible hypothesis was advanced 30 years later by origin of life unexplained, and also it seemed increasingly
the Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius, who suggested incredible that even a tiny microbe could withstand the
that bacteria might travel between planets and even be- harsh environment of outer space. Apart from the vacu-
tween star systems. The propulsion mechanism he pro- um conditions and low temperatures, the intense radia-
posed was light pressure. He realized that sunlight exerts tion would prove extremely hazardous. Most scientists
a tiny but persistent force on small dust particles in space preferred to assume that life is restricted to Earth, and any
and influences the formation of comets dust tails. Since research on the subject of biogenesis focused instead on

1999 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. Sky & Telescope September 1999 33
 Fred Hoyle (left) and N. Chandra Wickrama-
singhe have long championed the idea that life
on Earth and elsewhere was spawned by micro-
bial spores borne across interplanetary and in-
terstellar space. Courtesy N. C. Wickramasinghe.

produce extremely rapidly, a suitably hos-

IRS 7 (Allen & Wickramasinghe)
IRS 7 (Okuda & others)
dry E. coli-type material
Relative transmittance
the theory of the primordial soup an
ancient terrestrial pond or ocean in which
pitable comet could soon be swarming
with microbes. Should that comet then
approach the Sun, legions of these organ-
isms could be released by the solar
warmth and spewed out into the comets
tail. If a planet were then to sweep
through the debris, some bacteria might
find their way safely to the ground and
take up residence. Hoyle and Wickrama-
singhe even claim that various diseases
and pandemics in recorded history might

lifeless chemicals somehow transformed have had an extraterrestrial cause!

2.8 3.0 3.2
Wavelength (microns)
The infrared spectrum of IRS 7, a cosmic
source near the galactic center, is remarkably
similar to that of material derived from the
common bacterial strain E. coli. Courtesy N. C.
Wickramasinghe, D. A. Allen, D. T. Wickrama-
singhe, and H. Okuda.
themselves into a primitive living cell.
In the 1970s, however, the panspermia
idea was revived by the British cosmolo-
gist Fred Hoyle and his coworker N.
Chandra Wickramasinghe (Cardiff Uni-
versity), who obtained evidence that the
3.4 3.6
thermal-infrared (heat) spectrum emitted
by interstellar grains resembles that of
dried bacteria. This led them to speculate
that some interstellar grains might actu-
ally be bacteria. Hoyle and Wickrama-
singhe were aware of the radiation hazard
facing a living organism in space, but
they pointed out that certain microbes
are known to have amazing resilience to
radiation. One particular bacterium,
Deinococcus radiophilus, can reportedly
recover from X-ray blasts millions of
times the intensity that would kill most
living things. To some researchers it
seemed unlikely that such astonishing
powers of endurance would have evolved
on Earth, and that perhaps the ancestors
of D. radiophilus had adapted to with-
stand such high radiation levels as a re-
sult of long exposure to interstellar space.
Cometary Conveyances
Hoyle and Wickramasinghe introduced a
new ingredient comets into the
panspermia mix. The interior of cometary
nuclei remains unknown territory, but it
may be that microbes can survive there
while shielded from the worst effects of
deep-space radiation. Since bacteria re-
In recent years several experiments
have been performed to test the viability
of bacteria and viruses under space condi-
tions. In one of these, microbes called
Bacillus subtilis spent nearly six years in
space aboard NASAs Long Duration Ex-
posure Facility. A series of filters were
used to determine separately the effects of
vacuum, solar radiation, and cosmic rays.
Another experiment simulated the effect
of 250 years of space exposure in the lab-
oratory. It turns out that microbes cope
relatively easily with the cold and the vac-
uum. In effect they become freeze-dried,
and this acts as a preservative. Some bac-
teria shrivel up to form spores, surround-
ing themselves with a tough protective
membrane. Under most conditions the
microbes go into suspended animation,
their metabolism ceases, and they just re-
main inert until circumstances improve.
The most lethal form of radiation in
interplanetary space is the Suns prodi-
gious ultraviolet energy. However, this
can be screened by even a thin layer of
material. Paul S. Wesson (University of
Waterloo) has pointed out that cool red-
giant stars spew out copious quantities of
carbon, and that space-faring bacteria in
such a star system might therefore be-
come coated in soot, thus shielding them
from the worst of the ultraviolet rays.
Unfortunately, another harmful source
is not so easily evaded. This is galactic
cosmic radiation, the collection of high-

Some scientists speculate that microbial spores migrate through space while stashed inside
the nuclei of comets. Once warmed by sunlight, the comet creates tails of gas and dust that re-
lease the spores from their protective confines. John A. Volk of Monrovia, California, recorded
Comet Hale-Bopp and the North America Nebula (near top edge) on March 29, 1997.

34 September 1999 Sky & Telescope 1999 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
energy subatomic particles that arises from
the depths of the universe. Over time its
cumulative effects would certainly prove
deadly. However, it is possible to imagine
scenarios in which microbes are at least
partially shielded even from this ubiqui-
tous hazard. Astrobiologist Christopher P.
McKay (NASA/Ames Research Center) en-
visages the following chain of events.
Imagine that our solar system passes
through a giant molecular cloud, of the
sort that is fairly common in the spiral
arms of the Milky Way. Gravitational per-
turbations from the cloud would disturb
vast numbers of comets lurking far be-
yond the orbit of Pluto, sending some of
them crashing into Earth. Mingling with
the detritus splashed into space by these
impacts are countless viable bacteria. The
molecular cloud serves to absorb or de-
flect the worst of the cosmic radiation, en-
abling the bacteria to survive for millions
of years. In the fullness of time, new star
systems begin to form within the cloud.
Near the periphery of a typical stellar neb-
ula, a disk of gas, dust, and ice spawns tril-
lions of comets and other icy bodies.
Some of the still-viable microbes become
incorporated into these comets and,
warmed by chemical energy, they start to

MICHAEL J. DALY (USUHS)

multiply. The new bacterial colonies grow
exponentially fast. Eventually, a life-laden
comet plunges into the inner zone of the
new star system and either sweeps by or
directly hits an Earth-like planet, deliver-
ing its cargo of microbes. Another planet A Pyrex beaker (top) turns brown and brittle after exposure to 1.7 million rads of gamma rays, an
has been seeded with life. exposure equivalent to spending more than 17 trillion years in space. Yet such incredible doses
Attractive though the foregoing story of radiation are easily survived by colonies of Deinococcus radiodurans (lower left). This unusual
may seem, it involves a long sequence of bacterium can rapidly repair radiation-induced damage to the DNA within its cells (lower right).
fortuitous events and some very opti-
mistic assumptions about the robustness In 1990, after spending nearly six years in orbit, NASAs Long Duration Exposure Facility and its
of microbes. It would be rash to insist 57 experiments were returned to Earth for analysis. Samples of Bacillus subtilis easily survived
that this scenario has never happened, the extended journey and reproduced readily after being incubated in a laboratory.
but it is highly unlikely that life would
spread efficiently across the galaxy by
such a process.

Interplanetary Launch Pads

By far the most plausible panspermia
mechanism involves microbes hitching a
ride aboard rocks hurled from one plan-
et to another following impacts by aster-
oids and comets. Cocooned inside a large
boulder, a bacterium would be protected
from ultraviolet radiation, solar flares,
and all but the highest-energy cosmic
rays. We know that rocks from Mars have
reached Earth is it possible that live
Martian microbes could have lain shel-
NASA / JSC

tered inside some of them?

A few years ago, such an idea would

1999 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. Sky & Telescope September 1999 35
 15 km/s Escaping
7 km/s surface
spalls
1 km/s
Projectile
0.2 km/s
Hot, high-pressure
vapor
S&T / GREGG DINDERMAN; SOURCE: H. JAY MELOSH
Molten rock
Shock
front
Crushed,
heated rock
Somewhere on Mars, a 100-meter-wide asteroid slams into the surface at 15 km per second. Just
0.004 second into the event, an intense shock wave is already propagating downward and out-
ward into the crust. But at ground level a thin shell of material is rapidly accelerated upward
some of it exceeding escape velocity without suffering much damage or heating.
have seemed preposterous, but today it is or above the normal boiling point of
being taken quite seriously by members water and at pressures of several hun-
of NASAs astrobiology and planetary- dred atmospheres. Some are primary
exploration programs. Although Mars is producers, known as chemotrophs, which
now a desiccated desert hostile to life, bil- make biomass directly from the minerals
lions of years ago it was warm, wet, and and gases percolating through the rock
not unlike Earth. Photographs from Mars pores. These remarkable organisms can
Global Surveyor, now circling the red live comfortably completely embedded
planet, confirm that water once flowed in rock, without the need for sunlight or
on the Martian surface. There were rivers, a supply of organic nutrients.
lakes, glaciers, and possibly a shallow Given that terrestrial rocks literally
ocean. Active volcanoes may have created teem with microbes, it is conceivable that
hot springs and submarine vents like Martian rocks were once similarly inhab-
those on the floor of our oceans today. ited. Indeed, colonies of microbes may
These black smokers, whose dusky, su- still be there today, far beneath the sur-
perheated fluids spew from cracks in the face where the planets internal heat has
seabed, play host to rich and diverse melted the permafrost. If Mars has ever
ecosystems. Many microbiologists believe harbored such rock-dwellers, it seems in-
that life started in such a setting. evitable that some of them would have
Scientists have recently discovered that journeyed into space in the debris from
life is not restricted to the surface of cosmic impacts.
Earth but instead extends deep into the How likely is it that a bacterium
rocky crust. Borehole projects in several would survive the shock of ejection from
countries, and the decade-long interna- a planetary surface? Intuition suggests
tional Ocean Drilling Program, have that a bang big enough to knock rocks
found signs of microbial life several kilo- into orbit would instantly kill all life in
meters underground and most recently the target zone. However, the 14 known
beneath the sea floor. Many of these ex- Martian meteorites found on Earth have
tremophiles thrive at temperatures near not been subjected to enormous violence
36 September 1999 Sky & Telescope 1999 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
after all. Impact specialist H. Jay Melosh
(University of Arizona) has an explana-
tion for this seeming paradox. When an
asteroid or comet hits a planet, most of
the impactor itself vaporizes, and a pow-
erful shock wave propagates into the sur-
rounding rock. Beneath ground zero
the crustal material becomes highly com-
pressed and melts. But in the surface
zone around the periphery it cannot be
compressed very much, because the at-
mosphere above exerts negligible pres-
sure. Instead, as shown at left, the rock is
accelerated upward, shooting into the
sky at high speed. An impact crater
forms from the excavation of this ma-
terial and the underlying strata.
Although rocks at the surface endure
relatively mild shock and compression, the
accelerations they experience are neverthe-
less enormous greater than 10,000 g.
Remarkably, experiments with centrifuges
show that bacteria can withstand this sort
of punishment. Recently Curt Milei-
kowsky (Royal Institute of Technology,
Stockholm) tested the survivability of
Bacillus subtilis and Deinococcus radiodu-
rans inside discharged artillery shells that
delivered millisecond-long impulses pro-
ducing 33,000 g. A substantial fraction of
the microbes remained alive afterward.
Melosh, Mileikowsky, and their cowork-
ers have estimated the number of large
impacts on Mars and how much of the
ejected rock gets no hotter than 100 Cel-
sius (see the table at lower right). For im-
pact velocities of 15 kilometers per second,
typical for Mars, larger impacts produce
proportionally bigger rock fragments. Im-
pactors 100 km across, for example, would
eject almost a thousand trillion tons of
giant boulders averaging 30 meters across.
Collisions of this magnitude were com-
mon during the heavy bombardment
phase of the solar system that continued
until about 3.8 billion years ago.
Once launched into space, any cast-
away organisms would find cosmic radi-
ation their greatest hazard to survival.
Even sheltered in the center of a boulder,
a bacterium is not completely safe. Some
high-energy cosmic rays penetrate quite
deeply, producing bursts of lethal sec-
ondary radiation as they go. Conse-
quently, for rock fragments up to 80 cen-
timeters in diameter, an organism inside
actually experiences a higher cosmic-ray
dose than it would if floating in space it-
self. But larger boulders act as very effec-
tive shields against galactic cosmic rays,
as shown in the table on the facing page.
Calculations by Brett J. Gladman suggest that the inner planets frequently pepper each other
Interplanetary Transfers
with impact debris. Fragments that dont collide with any planet are most likely ejected from
the solar system or thrown into the Sun. Each planets escape velocity is given at far left. Source Destination Ejecta Most likely
planet planet swept up arrival time
(percent) (106 years)
Mercury Mercury 80 0.110
In addition to cosmic rays, the natural out dying. It seems very likely that bacte- (4.4 km/s) Venus 7 530
radioactivity of the rock also presents a ria inside large rocks could orbit the Earth/Moon 0.5 1030
threat, but the effects of this become se- solar system for comparable intervals Mars
rious only after many millions of years. and remain viable. In any case, purely on Venus Mercury 0.5 110
The likelihood of a Martian microbe statistical grounds, some Mars ejecta will (10.4 km/s) Venus 50 0.110
making it to Earth alive depends crucially fly off with just the right speed and di- Earth/Moon 9 0.110
on how long the journey takes. Once in rection to reach Earth very quickly, per- Mars <1 150
space, most rocks ejected from Mars go haps in no more than a few years or Earth/Moon Mercury
into orbit around the Sun. Over time, decades. (11.2 and Venus 15 0.110
gravitational disturbances caused by the Melosh calculates that, over the last 2.4 km/s) Earth/Moon 50 0.0110

JON LOMBERG ILLUSTRATION

planets will spread the fragments over a four eons, roughly a half billion chunks Mars 0.1 150
larger and larger volume of space. Only a of Mars could have reached Earth with Mars Mercury
small fraction eventually reach Earth. reasonable quantities of D. radiodurans (5.0 km/s) Venus 4 120
Brett J. Gladman (Cornell University) and surviving the journey. Still earlier, during Earth/Moon 5 120
his colleagues have run computer simula- the heavy-bombardment phase, 10 times Mars 3 0.120
tions to track the fate of material ejected as many of these potentially inhabited
from Mars and predict that 5 percent of it rocks could have made it here. Of course,
eventually reaches Earth, about a third of many would have burned up in Earths raises an interesting reverse scenario.
this in the first 10 million years. The table atmosphere and thus failed to deliver any Even if life began only on Earth, it very
on the next page shows the transfer odds of their microbial cargo to the surface. likely reached Mars at an early stage by
for various combinations of inner-planet But the numbers involved are so huge the same impact-ejection mechanism.
departure and arrival points. that many Martian meteorites inevitably Our planets higher surface gravity and
made a safe landing. Indeed, Earth thicker atmosphere reduced the number
Survival of the Fittest should have been salted so liberally with of rocks that could reach Mars with live
Could a microbe survive inert in space Martian rocks over solar-system history microbes inside them. Nevertheless,
for millions of years, even if protected that, even if the estimates of the radia- many millions of terrestrial rocks could
from radiation? Nobody really knows, tion and other hazards are off signifi- have contaminated Mars over the last 4
but on Earth dormant bacteria have been cantly, the panspermia hypothesis re- billion years. The transfer rate would
entombed in amber, salt crystals, ice, or mains highly plausible. have been especially high as the period of
permafrost for many thousands, and All this supposes that biology devel- heavy bombardment was ending. Coinci-
sometimes many millions of years, with- oped on Mars in the first place, which dentally, thats when Mars likely enjoyed
a rather clement climate and life had
likely already gained a strong foothold
The long-term survival of Bacillus subtilis in space requires rock shielding from cosmic rays. (The on Earth. Although it is hard to fathom
tables right-hand column lists the time required to reduce the microbial population to one-mil- the fortunes of terrestrial bacteria de-
lionth of its initial count, assuming exposure to cosmic rays alone.) A thin film of carbon affords posited on the ancient Martian surface, it
protection from ultraviolet light. But a thick mantle of rock is needed to shield organisms from does not seem unreasonable to imagine
high-energy cosmic rays. Since this radiation creates a cascade of secondary particles upon impact, those microbial migrants spreading rap-
microbes embedded in small rocks actually suffer higher radiation doses than those exposed idly and colonizing the ruddy rocks to
directly to space. For adequate shielding, the enclosing rock must be roughly 1 meter across. great depth in a short period of time.

Enduring the Journey

Spall Microbe survival
diameter (m) (106 years) Ultraviolet rays
S&T ILLUSTRATION / TABLE SOURCE: C. MILEIKOWSKY, ICARUS

0.01 1.3
0.06 1.4
0.2 1.1
0.5 1.0
0.7 1.1
1 1.3
2 3.2 Cosmic rays
3.2 14
4 32
4.7 73
Microbes in space Microbes in small rock Microbes in large rock
5.3 175

1999 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. Sky & Telescope September 1999 37
 In 1991 microbiologists Ral J. Cano and Monica Borucki (California Polytech-
nic State University) successfully revived a strain of prehistoric bacteria (upper
panel). The bacterial spores were extracted from the abdomen of a bee
trapped in amber (fossilized tree sap) some 25 to 40 million years ago.

If microbes can travel so freely be- time Mars may already

tween Earth and Mars, then cross-con- have enjoyed a flourishing
tamination of the two planets may have biosphere. If so, then life
thoroughly erased the record of which on Earth could have come
planet bore life first. Norman H. Sleep originally from Mars, and
(Stanford University) and Kevin J. Zahnle we would all be descended
(NASA/Ames) believe that Mars, rather from Martians!
than Earth, offered the better bet. Being a Could ejected Earth or
smaller planet, Mars cooled more quickly Mars rocks convey life to
and its comfort zone for subsurface mi- yet other planets, or per-
crobes would have extended deeper soon- haps even to other star

JO ANN LLOYD / CALPOLY, SAN LUIS OBISPO

er, thus affording earlier protection
against the cosmic bombardment. Also,
the effects of very large impacts would be
less devastating on Mars because it lacked
an extensive ocean. On Earth, the abrupt
arrival of bodies 500 km or more in size
would have boiled the oceans, swathed
the planet with an atmosphere of rock
vapor and superheated steam, and sent a
lethal heat pulse deep into the crust. Ster-
ilizing impacts of this ferocity probably
occurred repeatedly on Earth until al-
most 3.8 billion years ago, but by that
systems? It seems very un-
likely. Within our solar
system only Europa offers
much hope of a third
suitable habitat. The far-
ther away a planet is from
a given launch site, the
longer the expected travel
time and the smaller the
chances of an ejected rock
hitting it with a still-viable cargo of bac- microbes wafting across the galaxy seems
teria. Some fraction of Earth and Mars extremely far-fetched, though not strictly
ejecta eventually gets flung out of the impossible. There is a wild card in this
solar system by Jupiter, game, however. Scientists lack a proper
and after many tens of definition of life, and microbiologists are
millions of years a rock uncertain just how small the simplest liv-
could find itself entering ing thing might be. Recent claims that
another star system. But ultratiny bacteria have been discovered
the probability of it actu- in deep rocks on Earth (see page 40)
ally hitting another Earth- raise some key questions for the
like planet is tiny, even panspermia theory. As a rule, the smaller
supposing any microbes and simpler an organism is, the greater
DON DAVIS ILLUSTRATION / TABLE SOURCE: C. MILEIKOWSKY (COURTESY ICARUS)

within it could survive a its chances of survival in outer-space

journey of such duration. conditions. If nanobacteria really exist
The panspermia theory they could represent the hardiest space-
therefore has a curious farers yet. Who knows? Those submicron
status. Kelvins original blobs seen by electron microscopes
idea of rocky debris con- might be the descendants of interstellar
veying life from one plan- or even intergalactic colonists.
et to another is beginning
to look rather plausible, at Paul Davies is Visiting Professor of Physics at
least in the restricted case Imperial College London, though he lives in
of microorganisms hop- South Australia. This article is based on his
ping between neighboring latest book, The Fifth Miracle: The Search for
planets. But Arrheniuss the Origin and Meaning of Life (Simon &
theory of myriad naked Schuster, 1999).

Escaping from Mars

Impactor Final crater Mean spall Mass ejected Counter to intuition, giant impacts have propelled huge quantities of Martian
diameter diameter diameter below 100 C
(km) (km) (m) (g) matter into space without heating it significantly. An impactor 100 kilometers
100 600 30 8.3 1017 across ejects about half of the mass of Deimos, the smaller of Marss two satel-
30 250 9 2.2 1016 lites. Blasted into space by high-speed impacts, countless rocks from the sur-
20 175 6 6.6 1015 face of Mars and whatever life forms they might have contained have
made their way to Earth over the eons.

38 September 1999 Sky & Telescope 1999 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.