From: Alex Michael Bonnici (albonnici_at_vol.net.mt)
Date: Sat Sep 03 2005 - 21:30:12 UTC
Hello Gang,
Remember this post from August 2004? Any recent updates either
confirming or denying the claim?
Alex
attached mail follows:
NEWS FROM THE SPIE CONFERENCE IN DENVER, 2-3 AUG 2004:
Cyanobacteria found in a meteorite:
At a conference in Denver today [2 Aug 2004], NASA's Richard Hoover announced evidence of a fossilized cyanobacterial mat in the Orgueil carbonaceous meteorite. His pictures of forms in the meteorite were indistinguishable from known, Earthly fossilized cyanobacteria such as phormidium tenuissimum. The images from Orgueil were taken in July, 2004, using Environmental- and Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
Other fossilized bacteria have been found in meteorites, including Orgueil, before now (see related webpages linked [at panspermia.org website].) But the possibility that Earthly bacteria could have colonized the meteorites and left fossils in them after they arrived leaves room for doubt within the scientific establishment today. Contamination is not a possible cause now however, because the observed cyanobactera, on Earth, form their mats only under water on surfaces exposed to sunlight. This fragment of Orgueil was not under water on Earth (it would have dissolved), nor was its interior open and exposed to sunlight on Earth before now. Furthermore, the newly seen fossils are not isolated single cells, but whole ecologies. They must have grown on the meteorite's parent body before it fell.
Participants at the SPIE Conference in Denver who saw the new images agreed that Hoover's evidence is momentous. Photos and updates will be posted here when available.
http://www.panspermia.org/whatsnew.htm#0400802 from Brig Klyce
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