If a group of
scientists are correct, tiny fossils uncovered inside a meteorite found in Sri Lanka in
December are proof of extraterrestrial life.
In a detailed
paper called "Fossil Diatoms In A New Carbonaceous Meteorite" that is
appearing in the Journal
of Cosmology, Chandra Wickramasinghe claims to have found strong evidence
that life exists throughout the universe.
An electron
microscope was used to study the reported remains of a large meteorite (see
image below right) that fell near the Sri Lanka
village of Polonnaruwa on Dec. 29.
Wickramasinghe
is the director of the Buckingham Centre for Astrobiology at the University of Buckingham
in the U.K.
In December, he and his colleagues found "a microstructure and morphology
characteristic of a wide class of terrestrial diatoms." The group
concluded that "the presence of structures of this kind in any
extraterrestrial setting could be construed as unequivocal proof of
biology" -- in other words, proof of life outside of planet Earth.
Wickramasinghe
and the late English astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle co-developed a theory known as
"panspermia," which suggests that life exists throughout the universe
and is distributed by meteoroids and asteroids.
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