Bacterial fry-up: Living and fossil samples of bacteria were attached to the heat shield of the ESA's Foton M3 spacecraft.
Credit: ESA
PARIS: A novel experiment has dealt a setback to a theory that life on Earth was kick-started by bacteria which hitched a ride on space rocks.
The 'panspermia' hypothesis is that cells were transported to the infant Earth on rocks that were bumped off other planets or came from another star system.
The theory gained notoriety in 1996 when a group of U.S. scientists proposed that a famous meteorite found in Antarctica had traces of fossilised bacteria that once lived on Mars.
Artificial meteorites
Seeking to find out more, a European Space Agency (ESA) team devised artificial meteorites to see what happens when rocks bearing fossil traces and living bacteria are exposed to the fiery heat of entering Earth's atmosophere.
In research unveiled today, at the European Planetary Science Congress in Muenster, Germany, the team report that they attached small rocks, two centimetres thick, to the ESA's unmanned Foton M3 capsule. This was launched in September 2007, and returned to Earth 12 days later.
The samples were imbedded on the capsule's heat shield, which reached a peak velocity of 27,200 km/h during the controlled descent. One sample comprised a 3.5-billion-year-old piece of sedimentary rock from Pilbara, Australia, that contained carbonaceous microfossils.
The other was a piece of lake sedimentary rock from the Orkney Islands, Scotland, containing chemical traces of past organisms.
Hardy germ
The back of both rocks was smeared with a living bacterium called Chroococcidiopsis – a hardy, primitive species that lives on the underside of stones in the desert, surviving on tiny droplets of moisture. Some scientists have considered it, or a relative of it, to be a good candidate for a Martian germ.
Recovered and analysed after the return, the Pilbara sample was found to be covered with a creamy-white 'fusion crust' about half a millimetre thick but, underneath, its microfossils were intact.
The Orkney sample lost nearly a third of its mass, but otherwise survived, as did its biomolecules.
But there was bad news for the Chroococcidiopsis. The bugs were burnt to a crisp, although their carbonised outline remained intact.
"The STONE-6 experiment suggests that, if Martian sedimentary meteorites carry traces of past life, these traces could be safely transported to Earth," said investigator Frances Westall, of the Centre of Molecular Biophysics in Orleans, France.
Mars rocks
"However, the results are more problematic when applied to panspermia," she said. "STONE-6 showed at least two centimetres of rock is not sufficient to protect the organisms during [atmospheric] entry."
So far 39 meteorites have been found on Earth that have been attributed, through their chemical signature, to a Martian origin.
The notion is that they were knocked off the planet in the distant past by an asteroid impact. They then wandered in space before landing here. But all of these meteorites are of basalt, or volcanic origin.
Perplexing find
None is sedimentary, a term for rocks that are laid down in beds or strata as a result of wind, water or gravity. This has perplexed scientists, as there is abundant evidence for sediments on the Red Planet.
The outcome of the STONE-6 experiment, though, shows that Martian sedimentary rocks could survive entry through Earth's atmosphere.
The Foton M3 capsule generated temperatures of around 1,700 ºC, although its speed was somewhat slower than that of a meteorite. Meteorites normally attain a velocity of 42,800 to 53,600 km/h, depending on their angle of descent. A third piece of rock, a control sample of basalt, was lost during the descent.
