This may be just may be the Geekiest post I have ever blogged.
It may also be the most important.
The short implication of this article in the Journal of Cosmology is that life arrived on Earth on board some of the carbonaceous meteorites.
I will be watching the regular media for “dumbed down” updates over the next week.
Fossils of Cyanobacteria in CI1 Carbonaceous Meteorites
Richard B. Hoover, Ph.D. NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center
Synopsis
Dr. Hoover has discovered evidence of microfossils similar to Cyanobacteria, in freshly fractured slices of the interior surfaces of the Alais, Ivuna, and Orgueil CI1 carbonaceous meteorites. Based on Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM) and other measures, Dr. Hoover has concluded they are indigenous to these meteors and are similar to trichomic cyanobacteria and other trichomic prokaryotes such as filamentous sulfur bacteria. He concludes these fossilized bacteria are not Earthly contaminants but are the fossilized remains of living organisms which lived in the parent bodies of these meteors, e.g. comets, moons, and other astral bodies. The implications are that life is everywhere, and that life on Earth may have come from other planets.
Members of the Scientific community were invited to analyze the results and to write critical commentaries or to speculate about the implications. These commentaries will be published on March 7 through March 10, 2011.
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Official Statement from Dr. Rudy Schild, Center for Astrophysics, Harvard-Smithsonian, Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Cosmology.
Dr. Richard Hoover is a highly respected scientist and astrobiologist with a prestigious record of accomplishment at NASA. Given the controversial nature of his discovery, we have invited 100 experts and have issued a general invitation to over 5000 scientists from the scientific community to review the paper and to offer their critical analysis. Our intention is to publish the commentaries, both pro and con, alongside Dr. Hoover’s paper. In this way, the paper will have received a thorough vetting, and all points of view can be presented. No other paper in the history of science has undergone such a thorough analysis, and no other scientific journal in the history of science has made such a profoundly important paper available to the scientific community, for comment, before it is published. We believe the best way to advance science, is to promote debate and discussion.
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The whole article can be read here, on the Journal’s website.
Ærchies Archive - Digital Detritus 
So we’re all illegal aliens?
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Of course!
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I sent this post to a friend who emailed back a link to this article on Time’s website. I thought you might find it interesting.
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I keep hoping that Exe-life will be found one day so I’m a sucker for this sort of headline 🙂
(No, I have never been abducted by aliens)
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Not to worry. I believe, given the vastness of the universe, we could not possibly be alone. Unfortunately, the distance, in light years, between us and other life probably means it will never be found in our lifetime. My friend (who emailed the above link), a physicist had this to say:
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I’m with you. The Universe would be quite inconsistent should Earth contain the only life forms.
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