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Cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov suspects an extraterrestrial origin for bacteria found on the exterior of the ISS:
A Russian cosmonaut claims to have caught aliens. Cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov says he found bacteria clinging to the external surface of the International Space Station that didn't come from the surface of Earth.
Shkaplerov told the Russian news agency that cosmonauts collected the bacteria by swabbing the outside of the space station during space walks years ago.
"And now it turns out that somehow these swabs reveal bacteria that were absent during the launch of the ISS module," Shkapkerov told TASS. "That is, they have come from outer space and settled along the external surface. They are being studied so far and it seems that they pose no danger."
A recent study suggests that interplanetary dust can transport microbes to or from Earth:
Astronomers have long believed that asteroid (or comet) impacts were the only natural way to transport life between planets. However, a new study published November 6 in Astrobiology suggests otherwise.
The study, authored by Professor Arjun Berera from the University of Edinburgh's School of Physics and Astronomy, suggests that life on Earth may have begun when fast-moving streams of space dust carried microscopic organisms to our planet. Berera found that these streams of interplanetary dust are not only capable of transporting particles to Earth, but also from it.
Space Dust Collisions as a Planetary Escape Mechanism (DOI: 10.1089/ast.2017.1662) (DX) (arXiv link above)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @06:31PM (2 children)
Wouldn't it be relatively easy to compare this bacteria's genetic makeup to other terrestrial bacteria?
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday November 29 2017, @06:48PM (1 child)
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=22816&page=1&cid=602924#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
For this swab, maybe, if they don't contaminate it on accident. Maybe it could be a little difficult to distinguish between Earth microbial DNA and Alpha/Proxima Centauri microbial DNA. Especially if one or the other seeded or was seeded in the distant past.
I haven't seen a single instance of a genome sequencer being sent on an unmanned space mission and it doesn't look like there are any in the planning. For example, the proposed Enceladus Life Finder [wikipedia.org] would not come with a sequencer.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by forkazoo on Friday December 01 2017, @12:36AM
I think the plan with a place like Enceladus would be to first figure out if there is anything to sequence. If you find life, you can figure out if you need a scooper or a grabber or a harpoon to get a sample. Having the sequencer there on the first mission, with no way to actually get a sample into it would be a bit of a waste.