Fred Hoyle An observer of the world and a ponderer on its problems ...

FOREWORD
By Paul Goddard, MD, FRCR

An amazing discovery

Is the Universe outside the Earth sterile or is it teeming with life? Did life originate on Earth or is it a cosmic event? Are there bugs in space, little green men on Mars and myriads of extraterrestrials, or are we completely alone on our single planet?

These and other age old debates about life in the Universe have been rekindled by the possible evidence of life on Mars (e.g. New Scientist, August 17th, 1996). But the fire never really died down and the two scientists who have kept the flame alight since the early 60s are Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe.

Imagine yourself in the situation that they found themselves. Highly respected astronomers researching on interstellar gas, they had already notched up many notable discoveries following on from Fred Hoyle's original, and subsequently proven correct, conclusion that there would be complex molecules in space. Trying to understand the spectra or the interstellar gas, for example from sources near the galactic centre (GC-IRS7), they discovered that the best fit was with organic material. More specifically an almost perfect correlation was obtained between the transmittance spectra of desiccated bacteria and the radiation flux from sources of cosmic infrared radiation.

Many people had previously postulated that life could be a cosmic phenomenon but before Hoyle and Wickramsinghe's discovery there was no objective evidence for the existence of life anywhere but on the Earth. Their evidence of organic life in space was thus a major discovery.

Further evidence has subsequently been forthcoming but the prevailing scientific theories have been strongly against the idea that life could have originated elsewhere. After all, the biologists may say, we know that life originated on earth and that it evolved due to natural selection by survival of the fittest. In such a scenario there is no need, and indeed no room, for a cosmic theory of life.

Thus many of the findings of Hoyle and Wickramasinghe have been ridiculed although no cogent evidence to the contrary has ever been put forward.

Now that the theory of abundant life in the cosmos is again becoming worthy of respectable discussion, their fundamentally important contributions are in danger of being passed over by scientists who would prefer to think that their own discoveries are all new, and who would like to merge the new facts into their existing neo-Darwinian culture.

But are the Darwinists really in such a strong position? Can they really state as fact that the Darwinian theory of survival of the fittest is the major determinant of biological life? A few moments logical speculation is worthwhile at this point as to whether or not survival of the fittest is the only significant determinant of life and whether the biologists have such a strong case that the objective evidence of the astronomers can simply be derided.

Do the fittest survive?

It is inherent in Darwinian and neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory that the fittest survive and that this is the driving force of evolution either at the level of the species, the individual or at the level of the gene.

This thinking is also apparent in economics from the time of Adam Smith onwards leading to the belief that the 'market knows best'. It is instructive to compare biology and economics and to wonder whether or not the commonality of ideas is simply a demonstration of the prevalence of ideas in society ... ideas that have been formulated together such that we may be programmed to accept erroneous conclusions as fact.

The belief that the 'market knows best' has led to the assumption that left to its own devices 'the market' will eventually promote the best products, the best techniques and the best possible results. A disinclination to disagree with 'the market' is embodied in the phrase of the marketeers 'you can't buck the market'.

So, we are led to believe, there is a similarity of evolution in nature to that in economics. They are leading to 'that which is better'.

I would suggest that is not a view that any respectable biologists or economist should now hold.

Is there evidence for classical evolution?

Evolution of species is a difficult subject. Although natural selection in species can occur and bas been shown to occur in rare circumstances, it is more fundamentally challenging to note that the fossil evidence is lacking for the vast majority of the proposed evolution by natural selection. Indeed the fossil evidence would suggest that changes in biology have much more frequently occurred by jumps than by continuous change. Moreover, the survivors are not necessarily the fittest for the habitat in which they find themselves.

Surely the reply is put forward for biology and economics as if it is conclusive: ... they must be the fittest since they are the species/company that survived ... they are therefore the fittest for survival? This argument is specious tautology.

Catastrophe

Consider the chairs around your dining table. They are used for sitting on and perhaps, for a variety of other uses. They may vary in their 'fitness' for the tasks set them. A bolt of lightning sets fire to your house and all the chairs on one side are burnt to a cinder but those on the other side are not destroyed because they are in a different place. Will the best chairs survive? Will the 'fittest' chairs be picked out? Maybe and maybe not! It would be a foolish person who assumed that after the catastrophic event the chairs that survived were the best for the job. By sheer bad luck it is quite likely that the best chair would be destroyed and the most rickety one survived unscathed!

Take a more realistic example. Two species of mammals could have evolved on two separate land masses. The ecology of both land masses could be almost identical and it could be that species A is a better animal than species B, could easily out-compete it for food and breeding sites, and is less harmful to its surroundings. Species A would replace B but for the fact that it bas never come into contact with it due to the separation by a large body of water. The fittest mammal, we would agree, is species A.

Then the sea level rises by 20 metres. The land mass that species A is living on is all lower than 20 metres and all of the species A is wiped out. The land mass that B is living on has some areas that are above 20 metres and species B survives. At a later time the sea recedes and B is now able to colonise the land mass previously occupied by species A. Has the fittest survived? Catastrophe has led to the survival of the unfit. The first fish in the pool may be a selfish fish.

With economics as with biology, although catastrophe is clearly important, it is not essential for the survival of the unfit. For example the fittest creature may 'evolve' after the 'less-fit' but never get a chance to develop due to the larger number of 'less-fit' creatures that already occupy the particular ecological niche. This can be considered as the 'first fish in the pool' scenario.

Or in economics a number of different "less-fit" companies could co-operate to remove a better competitor. Consider in this context Betamax and VHS video systems or the various computer companies and their products. Clearly it is not always the best and fittest that survived.

The entire classical economic theory relies on a belief in 'enlightened self-interest'. If human beings are considered as rational creatures who will eventually choose the better product since it is 'right to do so', the economy will lead to stability and obey classical economic laws. In fact such stability never occurs and the products and companies that survive are not chosen solely for their fitness, although it is a factor, but for a whole host of reasons that appeal to the self-motivated and selfish individuals who make up the market (including, of course, myself!). The graph of the share index fluctuates in a manner that is mathematically chaotic rather than truly random, and does not appear at any time to be approaching 'sustainable' stability.

Again, in biology, if we ignore the selfishness of the individual, either at gene level, phenotype level, family group or species level we are binding ourselves to significant facts.

Is the system closed or open?

Another major consideration that we should address is whether or not we are dealing with a closed system. In a closed system it may make some sense to suggest that there will be a continual slide toward dissolution and entropy. Thus the greatest complexity will have occurred initially and later increases of complexity in a species (individual/gene/company/product) can only occur at the expense of other individuals. Thus there is an assumption that the survival of the fittest occurs at the expense of the other species or companies and that this is the way of the world ... some must fall by the wayside in order that others may 'progress'.
Inherent in this belief is the assumption that at some mythical time there was much greater variety than now. Thus a choice could be made between the fit and the unfit leaving only the fit to survive. This is another assumption that has become enshrined in our belief system. Put simply we are saying that there must initially be a huge variety of possibilities and some have to fail in order that others survive.

But perhaps this is also untrue. Perhaps the whole basis of the argument is flawed and there is a place for all of the species or companies. This could only be the case if we are not living and existing in a closed system, and at the most basic level it is evident that we are not.

The Earth is not a closed system. It is bombarded with electromagnetic radiation from the Sun which provides the vast proportion of the energy required for living organisms. Other irradiation comes from far distant sources as cosmic rays resulting in radioactive particles, such as Pi-mesons hitting the surface of the plant. The Earth passes through meteor showers, comet tails and asteroids. Objects hit the Earth that originated on other planets such as Mars and it is not fanciful to point out that our solar system will brush against the interstellar dust from other systems and even other galaxies. Amongst this debris are definitely organic molecules, and it may even include organisms that have 'evolved' away from the Earth and outside our solar system.

In economic terms are we living in a closed system or do, in fact, new products that are completely unexpected suddenly appear? Think of pocket calculators and computers and the absolute plethora of new toys, new magazines, new books and music that have appeared in the last few years and were not predicted by anyone. Also consider how new markets for old products arise unexpectedly.

If this is the case and the Earth is not a closed system could it be that the level of complexity we have now is the greatest that it bas ever been? Could there now exist more individuals and more species than ever before? Could the variety of products that are offered to us for sale be greater than previously? Could people generally be better off than they were?

It is clear that evolution and survival of the fittest is by no means the only method for development of species and it is also true that the market does not necessarily know best. In fact chaos, catastrophe and complexity theories must all be taken into account when we consider any complex situation, and we must cast aside our assumption that we represent the pinnacle of evolution and that our present economic system is the best that can possibly be achieved.

Perhaps greater successes are around the corner as we near the end of the millennium but we must try very hard to avoid catastrophe. Continuously blinding ourselves to facts will certainly not assist us.

Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe present their evidence in this book in an understandable and entirely readable form. It is up to you to judge the veracity of their ideas. Prologue

PROLOGUE

The popular belief is that the Copernican Revolution and the inquisition of Galileo are things of the past. Human societies, it is claimed, have progressed beyond the stage when such outrages could happen again. In this book we show that the Copernican Revolution is far from over, and that society has not improved since the sixteenth century in any important respect. If anything the situation may have got worse, with the successes of the Industrial Revolution conferring upon human beings a degree of arrogance not seen before. The dogma has shifted from an Earth-centred Universe to the equally unlikely idea that life, which is the most complex and amazingly intricate phenomenon in the entire cosmos, must be centred on the Earth. The new dogma has Judeo-Christian roots, but today its custodians are scientists rather than the high priests of the Church.

Our capacity to probe the Universe around us, to ask and discuss questions concerning origins (always to ask, sometimes to answer), sets us apart from all other creatures that inhabit our planet. This remarkable capacity, or intelligence as we prefer to call it, may be seen as the end product of a long history, a history that according to the thesis of this book must have predated the formation of the Earth some 4500 million years ago. For close upon 4000 million years, terrestrial life meandered along in a seemingly mindless way. Starting from microscopic single-celled creatures, it built up to become more and more complex, more and more sophisticated and diverse, through long periods of geological time, until at last a species emerged that was endowed with the capacity to look back on the very processes that created it. We are all members of that uniquely privileged species.

How did this whole process come about? Did it arise through a sequence of random events here on the Earth, or was it instigated from outside the Earth, from space, and is it even possible that it might have been driven by the agency of an external cosmic intelligence? These are some of the questions we shall address in later chapters of this book.

The orthodox explanation of these facts, which is attributed to Charles Darwin and a long succession of his disciples, is well known. In its modern extended form, Darwinian theory asserts that the earliest living cell was assembled through a purely mechanistic shuffling of the basic building blocks of life, and that subsequent mistakes of copying (mutations) and occasional doublings of genes, together with a continual sieving out of the 'unfit' in relation to every terrestrial environment, led to the products of evolution that are seen today. All this is taught nowadays as though it embodied proven unquestionable facts, but in reality it is little more than dogma, dogma that has come to be fossilised in our educational system. A great deal of this dogma has turned out in recent years to be inconsistent with the real world. Yet the theory dies hard. This unfortunate situation has arisen through a sustained campaign of propaganda on the part of biologists, and by a blind eye being turned to every fact to emerge in later years that appeared to go against the theory. Several distinguished physicists have questioned the basic premises of this essentially pre-Copernican, earthbound theory and attempted to point the way towards a cosmic view of life. Among them are figures of no less stature than Kelvin, Helmholtz and Arrhenius, but all their protestations have come to naught in the face of the unrelenting propaganda of the Darwinian front. In addition to the conflict with Darwinism, the idea of terrestrial life being influenced by the external Universe runs counter to a long-established belief in the Christian Church. By about the sixth
century AD, Christian beliefs included the dogma that nothing that happens in the heavens could have any conceivable effect on the Earth. The heavens were merely an adornment that was of no practical importance in day-to-day life (except for the Sun, whose beneficial effects were not denied).

We begin our book by recounting the beginning of the Copernican Revolution, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, which still appears to have repercussions to the present day. Next we discuss the sociological forces that operated effectively to raise Darwin's theory from the reasonable speculation that it was: first to belief, then to entrenched dogma, and finally to the exalted status of 'irrefutable fact'. The situation that now faces us is potentially dangerous, not merely for a handful of interested scientists but for the entire human species. For when human beings collectively refuse to distinguish propositions about the world that are demonstrably true from those that are manifestly false, we must surely be heading down a road to disaster. The struggle against the power of the Church in the 1860s that fuelled Darwinian propaganda in the early years might now, in the 1990s, be transformed into a blueprint for ultimate extinction.

In this book we present evidence, which we think is irrefutable, to support our point of view that life is a cosmic phenomenon. At the same time we seek to analyse the sociological forces that appear to be rallied against an acceptance of this point of view. Components of cosmic life were, in our view, added to our planet in the form of bacteria and viruses from space, and perhaps, in a remarkable event which occurred about 570 million years ago, whole creatures arrived here from space; it has been from this cosmic assembly that terrestrial life has evolved over long periods of geological time. The rival theory asserts, without any tangible proof or evidence, that electric discharges in the atmosphere of a primitive Earth led to the inception of terrestrial life. The only empirical basis that could conceivably be claimed for this assertion is that the chemical building blocks of life - amino acids, nucleotides, sugars - have been synthesised under laboratory conditions that were considered to mimic conditions that may have existed on a primitive Earth. It has also been shown experimentally that these molecular units could be made to form into long polymer chains resembling, very superficially, biological polymers. Yet the result of such experiments is a far cry from life itself. All such experiments and inferences beg the most important question of all: the origin of the information content of life. The information content of life (that is to say, the information needed to put life together) is specific in kind, and super-astronomical in quantity. How was this highly specific information acquired in the first place, out of initial chaos? Darwin's allegorical 'warm little pond', cosy as it may sound, will scarcely suffice.

Astronomical evidence accumulated over the past decade has pointed to the existence of vast quantities of complex organic molecules in interstellar space. Moreover, we ourselves have found that the observed properties of cosmic dust grains are similar to the properties of freeze-dried bacteria as measured in the laboratory. The correspondences between our model and the data are so precise that we have been encouraged to suggest that cosmic dust grains are indeed bacteria, implying that cosmic microbiology operates and evolves on a galactic scale.

It is a necessary corollary to this point of view that bacteria must be space-hardy, and so indeed they are found to be. For example, a viable strain of Streptococcus mitis was recovered after two years of exposure to conditions on the surface of the Moon. It has been shown that bacteria can be taken down to near zero pressure and temperature without loss of viability, provided suitable care is exercised in the experimental conditions. Bacteria can survive after exposure to pressures as high as 10 tonnes per square centimetre, and after flash heating under dry conditions at temperatures of up to 600°C. Viable bacteria have been recovered from the interior of an operating nuclear reactor, having survived intense fluxes of ionizing radiation. These are not properties one would expect to have evolved on the Earth, but they are all properties necessary for survival in space.

At the birth of the Solar System, cometary bodies condensed at about the distances of the present planets Uranus and Neptune. We argue that even the smallest population of cosmic bacteria present within this primordial comet cloud would have been vastly amplified within individual comets in their warm watery interiors on a very short timescale.

Biological material from a comet is peeled away layer by layer when it approaches the inner regions of the Solar System. Some of this material could rain down intact onto the surfaces of the planets, including the Earth, providing the genetic building blocks from which life evolved. The recent return of Comet Halley offered a unique opportunity to test this theory of comets. We had predicted that the surface of the comet would at close quarters look dark, like an organic tarry substance, and so it was found to be. We also argued that a spectral signature of bacteria and viruses would be seen in the cometary dust, and this prediction was also verified to a startling degree of accuracy. We also predicted that the proportions of the chemical elements in the dust would be like those in bacteria, and sure enough they were.

Upwards of 10 to the 11 (I followed by II zeros, or 100 billion) lifebearing comets, in our view, envelop the Solar System, populating the so-called Oort cometary cloud. From time to time, individual comets are deflected out of this cloud into the inner regions of the Solar System by interaction with a passing star or molecular cloud. At the present time we know that only a few cometary objects each year are thus deflected to show up as new comets, but in the past much larger numbers might have been deflected, and cometary incursions would then have been much more frequent.

A life-bearing comet arriving at an Earth that had already acquired its oceans and atmosphere would effectively have seeded our planet with life. From the available geological evidence it would seem that this first successful seeding occurred about 3800 million years ago. However, the process of cometary injection of life could not have stopped at this distant prehistoric time. Comets are with us in the Solar System today, and the Earth continually picks up debris from comets. About 1000 tonnes of cometary debris enter the Earth's atmosphere every year, a fraction of which must surely contain microorganisms that actually arrive at the Earth's surface in a viable state.

This conclusion, bold though it may be, has the advantage of being susceptible to testing, especially if the Earth is being showered with microorganisms that are pathogenic to plants and animals. Viral and bacterial invasions could thus lead to epidemic outbreaks of, for example, influenza. The known patterns of influenza outbreaks over the surface of the Earth clearly prove, in our view, the direct incidence of the causative pathogen from space. This conclusion seems to have been reached by medieval doctors and readily conceded well into the nineteenth century. But nowadays the facts that relate to these matters are often suppressed or distorted by a society eager to disown its cosmic heritage.

Besides influenza, a wide range of other viral and bacterial diseases are also caused by the introduction of causative agents from outside the Earth. Many common epidemic diseases have a record of abrupt entrances, exits and re-entrances - exactly as though the Earth were being seeded at periodic intervals. In the case of smallpox, the time interval between successive entrances appears to have been about 700-800 years. Likewise, periodic occurrences of bubonic plague in historical times, and of epidemics such as the plague of Athens, all point to a direct incidence from space. In recent times, it would seem that the 3.5-year period of whooping cough can best be linked to bacteria expelled from Comet Encke. We also argue that highly localised outbreaks of viral and bacterial diseases (e.g. legionnaire's disease, viral meningitis) can be interpreted as the effect of small cometary bodies that enter the atmosphere and become dispersed near ground level over local areas of the Earth's surface.

To sum up: we argue that a wide range of facts point decisively to life being a phenomenon that must be connected with the much wider cosmos outside the Earth. Life on Earth is derived from an all pervasive, galaxy-wide biological system. Life was derived from and continues to be driven by sources outside the Earth, in direct contradiction to neo- Darwinian theory as it is generally understood. Our theory of biology has applications that are of immediate practical importance, for instance in the prevention or alleviation of the ravages of future epidemic disease. It would appear that there lies ahead a sociological struggle to get human beings to respect objective truth, even when such truth runs counter to prevailing beliefs. The very survival of our species could well be at stake.

PREFACE

Light scattering and absorption by small homogeneous particles can be worked-out exactly for spheres and infinite cylinders. Homogeneous particles of irregular shapes, when averaged with respect to rotation, have effects that can in general be well-approximated by reference to results for these two idealised cases. Likewise, small inhomogeneous particles have effects similar to homogeneous particles of the same average refractive index. Thus most problems can be solved to a satisfactory approximation by reference to the exact solutions for spheres and cylinders, which are fully stated here in the early part of the book.

The sum of scattering and absorption, the extinction, is too large to be explained by inorganic materials, provided element abundances in the interstellar medium are not appreciably greater than solar, H20 and NH3 being essentially excluded in the general medium, otherwise very strong absorptions near 3µm would be observed which they are not. A well-marked extinction maximum in the ultraviolet near 2200A has also not been explained satisfactorily by inorganic materials. Accurately formed graphite spheres with radii close to O.02µm could conceivably provide an explanation of this ultraviolet feature but no convincing laboratory preparation of such spheres has ever been achieved.

Certain metal oxides under special conditions show absorptions at 2200A but only weakly. On the other hand, suites of organic materials such as are actually found in nature have integrated extinction spectra remarkably similar in the ultraviolet to interstellar grains. Indeed on a wide range of counts, organic grains fit data in both visual and ultraviolet wavelengths ranges far better than the inorganic alternatives, data that is both extensive and complex, and which agreement is again confirmed extensively in the infrared.

Organic materials are far more efficiently synthesized biologically than abiologically. The antecedents of modern astronomers existed precariously as minor court officials who were strongly motivated to keep their astronomical studies and discoveries rigorously separated from the world of everyday events. This long history prejudices astronomers today against ideas that might suggest their work could be of practical relevance, or even of great importance in the circumstances that it has to do with the origin of life. Our aim is to take the reader through all the details which in the end support such a view, in the hope that at least some may be able to shake off an intellectually inhibiting attitude from the past.

Life on the Earth is almost as old as the oldest known rocks which are thought to have been too strongly heated for fossil evidence of life to have been retained at the beginning. On this evidence alone, therefore, life could as well be older than the Earth as younger. To the unbiased, the one should be just as much a fit subject of study as the other, taking the exploring mind into the astronomical field considered in this book.

Cardiff, June 1991
F. Hoyle
N.C. Wickramasinghe

Introduction

It is over a decade since we launched our original ideas on the cosmic beginnings of life. Our first book in the present series, Lifecloud, dealt mainly with the origins of the chemical building blocks of life - e.g. molecules like cellulose - which we considered to be widespread in our galaxy and beyond. Our seemingly heretical point of view was resisted, but only somewhat mildly, compared with what was to follow in later years. The competing theory at the time was that the organic molecules that were required for an origin of life were synthesised in situ on the Earth from a mixture of inorganic materials such as water, methane and ammonia exposed to energetic events such as lightning. Already in 1978 we found ourselves being slated by reviewers who had no hesitation in advocating the use of Ockham's Razor to eliminate what they considered to be a redundant and unprofitable hypothesis.

The tide of events was soon to prove our opponents wrong, however. Not only was the widespread occurrence of organic molecules in our galaxy established beyond a shadow of doubt, but such molecules - some of them exceedingly complex - were identified in extraterrestrial objects nearby. Complex organic molecules were found first of all in carbonaceous meteorites, then in extraterrestrial particles collected in the upper atmosphere, and later in comets. Events of 1986, including the direct probing of material from Comet Halley, culminated in a general acceptance, albeit reluctantly, of 'organic' comets. The ideas of Lifecloud which were thought highly controversial in 1977 slipped quietly and without ceremony into the realms of orthodox science,

The further development of our thinking in the years after 1977 led to certain ramifications of these ideas that came into direct head-on collision with long-established cultural values, The publication of Diseases from Space triggered a torrent of hostility for the reason that one is apparently not permitted on any account whatsoever to revive ideas that have once been discarded as medieval superstition, It was (and still is) our belief that the relevant factual evidence points strongly to an extraterrestrial origin of viruses and bacteria, and that on occasion the incidence of such microorganisms from space could explain the phenomenon of epidemic disease, Doctors and epidemiologists in the last century who described the spread of influenza as a 'miasma' descending over the land were not far off the mark, we think.

In Evolution from Space we again touched a raw nerve in our critics because our ideas could be interpreted with some licence as advocating a return to pre-Darwinian thinking. The creative driving force of evolution, we had argued, was derived not from mistakes in copying old genetic information as is currently thought, but from the addition of new genes in the form of viruses and bacteria from space. Although it is the case that neither Charles Darwin nor Alfred Russel Wallace actually specified the ultimate source of innovative mutations, later workers assumed without proof that such innovations must all be generated internally within the framework of terrestrial biology. Our challenge of this well-entrenched dogma was seen by many as an abrogation of a position that was reached after a long and strenuous struggle in the closing decades of the last century. In no way could they contemplate throwing aside a victory that was so hard won. There was also a danger that was perceived in relation to events in the present day. Any concession to the cosmic life theory tends to be resisted nowadays for fear that it could throw open the floodgates to creationist passion. Creationism of the kind espoused by fundamentalist groups in the United States is not a doctrine to which we ourselves can even remotely subscribe. Yet we do not think that the pursuit of science in an objective way can or should be sacrificed for fear that its discoveries may give succour to objectionable social groups.

Notwithstanding the many sociological obstacles in our way, we have pursued our ideas logically and relentlessly, leading eventually to the conclusions that are set out in the present book. Data gathered from a variety of scientific disciplines from the time of Lifecloud to Cosmic Life-Force have served as a basis for verifying our original thesis as well as for extending these ideas in directions that could not have been foreseen in 1977. We offer the reader an account of what might be described as our final synthesis, connecting the evolution of life and intelligence on the Earth with processes that are cosmic on the grandest possible scale.

WRIT IN THE STARS

When sightings of unidentified flying objects were claimed in the years following the second world war it seemed that genuine occurrences, like the reflection of sunlight from an escaped weather balloon, would soon be separated from the rest, the rest being nothing but a motley collection of inaccurate observation, hysterical reports, and deliberately planned fakes.

This did not happen, however. In 1950 people wanted to believe in UFOs, but they didn't. Nowadays, people want to believe in UFOs, and they do. There is a widespread feeling that the time is ripe for something of the kind to be proved true, and in a certain sense we shall demonstrate in this book that it is indeed true.

However, the Earth is not being invaded by intelligent beings in spacecraft. Such a concept is but a crude perception of the real situation; it is to 'see through a glass darkly', just as the poet who is struck by the beauty of a rose or the majesty of the starry sky perceives only glimpses of far deeper wonders.

A rose carries within it a heritage that stretches across aeons of time, a heritage which connects its fleeting present existence to the most remote past, and to distant far-flung parts of the Milky Way - our galaxy. So it is for every speck of living matter on the Earth, including of course ourselves. In the starry vault above us is writ, not merely the story of life on our planet, but of life throughout the universe.

The oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulphur, and the metals (to name several of the more important kinds of atom of which living material is composed) had their origin in the stars. This much is well-known. In this book we shall go further by showing that the exceedingly complex arrangements of these atoms in living material also had their origin on a cosmic scale. The Swedish chemist, Svante Arrhenius, whose work we shall review in the next chapter, was the first to develop this idea - an ancient idea - in a serious manner. We shall find that recent developments in astronomy and biology make the case for life as a galaxy-wide phenomenon quite overwhelming.

Let us here state the questions for which we seek the answers:

'How frequently might we expect life to turn up in the universe if we could somehow make such a survey?'

'How uniform is the basic chemical fabric of life?'

We shall find that answers to these questions, which have long been thought unanswerable, became almost self-evident as soon as we put together the known facts in an appropriate way.

Introduction

Lifecloud is concerned with the astronomical basis of the origin of life. At the level of the chemical elements it has been known for some years that nuclear processes within stars are responsible for synthesising carbon, nitrogen and oxygen from the simpler elements hydrogen and helium. More recently it has been established that within the interstellar gas clouds carbon, nitrogen and oxygen, together with hydrogen, form a wide variety of organic molecules. Astronomy therefore has a hand in the creation of life-forming material already at the organic level.

In this book we shall go beyond this and argue that astronomy is involved in the origin of life at the level of complex biomolecules, particularly the chains of sugar molecules linked through hydrogen atoms and known as polysaccharides. We shall present evidence relating not only to these chains but to another group of biomolecules, the nitrogenated ring molecules, and show how these two types of biomolecule were built from their constituent individual atoms. We maintain that the essential building-blocks of life exist on an astronomical scale in very great quantity.

We shall also argue that the interstellar cloud of gas and dust in which our solar system formed continued to add biomolecules long after the early high-temperature phase of the solar nebula and of the planetary material had been completed. Such additions of biomolecules provided the building-blocks for the emergence of still more complex forms, which eventually developed into the first living cells.

Our third contention deals with the likely site for the fitting of biomolecules into more complex forms. The Earth was a possible site, but seems less favourable than the multitude of comet-sized planetesimal bodies that must have existed over the first few hundred million years in the history of the solar system. It is also very likely that the Earth derived all its comparatively volatile materials in the atmosphere and the oceans from such planetesimal bodies. Our argument is that life arrived eventually on Earth by being showered already as living cells from comet-type bodies.

To set the background for these arguments, the first five chapters are concerned with various aspects of terrestrial biology. These are followed by four chapters which are largely astronomical and which lead up to Chapter 10, where evidence for the existence of biomolecules within the interstellar clouds of gas and dust is discussed. Chapters 11 to 14 deal with comets and meteorites, the birth of the solar system, and the possibility of the origin of life being cometary.

The final chapters are concerned with planets other than our own: Chapter 15 is about the other planets of the solar system, Chapter 16 is about planets moving around other stars, while the remaining ones deal with the question of the origin of life in other systems and with the possibility that eventually the human species may succeed in establishing communication with other life forms existing in other stellar systems within our galaxy.

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_utmz Lasts for 6 months from set/update It stores the traffic source or campaign that explains how the user reached your site. The cookie is created when the javascript library executes and is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics.

_utmv Lasts for 2 years from set/update Used to store visitor-level custom variable data. This cookie is created when a developer uses the _setCustomVar method with a visitor level custom variable. This cookie was also used for the deprecated _setVar method. The cookie is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics.

ARE COOKIES HARMFUL?

Cookies cannot harm you or your computer. They cannot contain viruses, cannot install harmful software and cannot damage your computer in any way. We do not use cookies to store any sensitive information, such as name, address or contact details.

Despite this, if you do wish to disable or remove cookies, please see the “Help” section of your browser or mobile device. Each browser or device handles the management of cookies differently, so you will need to refer to your appropriate “Help” documentation. However, as mentioned, please be aware that cookies are essential for certain features of websites to work properly.

For more information about cookies, please visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org.uk or refer to the documentation provided with your web browser software.

WHY ARE WE TELLING YOU THIS?

The information provided here on the use of cookies demonstrates our compliance with recent cookie legislation. We also want you to fully understand your privacy, how cookies affect you and to be entirely comfortable with your visit to this website.

We hope that this information eases any concerns you may have had about your privacy and safety with cookies. BY CONTINUING TO USE OUR WEBSITE, YOU AGREE TO BE SUBJECT TO THE TERMS OF THIS COOKIES POLICY AND OUR USE OF COOKIES AS DISCLOSED IN THIS POLICY.

INTERNET SECURITY

We take the security of personal data seriously.

We use uk2net( www.uk2.net ) for our web hosting. Their servers are housed in a secure environment with high levels of physical security.

To help safeguard your privacy, there are a number of things you can do to protect yourself from Internet fraud. Choose a password you can remember but others cannot guess. Changing it regularly, and if you do write it down, keep it somewhere safe and secure.

You might also consider logging off when you finish a session on a secure Site. Clear your browser's ‘caches’ manually or have it done automatically by your browser when you log off. Try not to leave a trail of activities on your computer that others might use to steal your identity.

THIRD PARTY WEBSITES

Third party Internet sites that you can link to through our website are not covered by this policy and Hoyle Productions Ltd accepts no responsibility or liability for the security of these websites.

GENERAL

Hoyle Productions Ltd is contactable via post at Hoyle Productions Ltd, 42a, Wimpole Road, Great Eversden, Cambridge, CB23 1HR, UK or by email at info@hoyle.org.uk.       

We keep our privacy policy under regular review and we will place any future updates on this webpage. This policy was last updated on September 2015.

COPYRIGHT OWNERSHIP

The copyright in this website and the material on this website, including without limitation the text, artwork, photographs, images, music, audio material, video material and audio-visual material on this website, is owned by Hoyle Productions Ltd and its licensors.

COPYRIGHT LICENSE

Hoyle Productions Ltd grants you a worldwide non-exclusive royalty-free revocable license to view this website and the material it contains on a computer or mobile device via a web browser. You may also copy and store this website and the material it contains in web browser's cache memory and print pages from this website for your own personal and non-commercial use.

Hoyle Productions Ltd does not grant you any other rights in relation to this website or the material on this website. This means you must not adapt, edit, change, transform, publish, republish, distribute, redistribute, broadcast, rebroadcast or show or play in public this website or the material on this website nor automate or systematically collect data from this website without Hoyle Productions Ltd prior written permission.

By downloading material from this site you agree to abide by our terms and conditions regarding copyright.

PERMISSIONS

You may request permission to use the copyright materials on this website by emailing us at info@hoyle.org.uk or by writing to Hoyle Productions Ltd, 42a, Wimpole Road, Great Eversden, Cambridge, CB23 1HR, UK.

This policy was last updated on September 2015.