16.02.10 Is it us who are really the Aliens?

The current search for life in the Universe is based on looking for Earth-like Exoplanets outside of our own Solar System, but maybe we are looking too far away! Prof Chandra Wickramasinghe, of Cardiff University has suggested that new research supports the idea that “seeds of life” as he refers to them, arrived on Earth 3 800 million years ago.

Popular believe is that microbes from outer space may have come to Earth by hitching a ride on a comet. This process, “panspermia”, whereby life can be transferred from one part of the universe to another was originally put forward by Sir Fred Hoyle and Professor Wickramasinghe back in the 1960’s.

Over the past three decades researchers have found that the Milky Way has a large number of dust clouds that are full of organic molecules. Some scientists have postulated that this is the “soup of life” from which potential life may have evolved. However, Professor Wickramasinghe puts forward, in his recent paper, that rather than being the building blocks of new life these organic molecules are the remains of bacteria which has been broken down,

"Interstellar clouds appear to be the graveyard of life not its cradle," he said.

So, what if life did arrive on Earth all that time ago – was it destined to develop into the dinosaurs or would it eventually be human. Think further, could the event which may have extinguished the dinosaurs 65 million years ago have been another passing comet with further “seeds of life” aboard?
Could the effect of the extinction of one species make room for the initialisation or kick starting another; who knows?

Professor Wickramasinghe and Sir Fred Hoyle’s panspermia theory may occur again on Earth at some point in the distant future or concurrently in some far flung corner of the universe on some of the so-called Exoplanets.
So, maybe in our search for aliens we ought to start much closer to home!!