Article by Sput Nick April 26, 2020 (sputniknews.com)
• Researchers from the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Space Research Institute conducted simulations of Venus’ atmospheric conditions and discovered that microscopic fungi can survive and thrive in high levels of ionizing radiation and sharp jumps in temperature. Scientists believe that microorganisms may be present in the upper layers of Venus’s atmosphere.
• The researchers also studied microorganisms in temperatures of -50 degrees Celsius (minus 58 degrees Fahrenheit) in the Arctic to simulate conditions on the surface of Mars. Here too, the bacteria proved quite adaptable to survival.
• The Russian scientists then studied soil bacteria present in the Mojave Desert, which is considered analogous to the kinds of microbial communities that may be found on Mars. The micororganisms were highly resistant to temperature, pH levels, and the presence of salts and strong oxidizing agents.
• The researchers also tested whether microorganisms could survive in conditions found on Jupiter’s moon, Europa, known to have a water-ice crust. Recreating bacteria embedded in ice at -130 degrees Celsius (minus 202 degrees Fahrenheit), scientists found that the bacteria could still theoretically survive at depths of 10-100 cm over a period of 1,000-10,000 years in the moon’s subglacial oceans.
• The prestigious Space Research Institute is a complement to Russia’s manned space program, taking part in multiple ongoing Roscosmos, European Space Agency and NASA missions on the study of the solar system, and goes back to Soviet-era probes of Venus and Mars.
Theories about the possible habitability of Earth’s closest neighbours go back to the dawn of the space age, with scientists creating increasingly complex instruments to try to confirm beyond a doubt whether such life exists in the years since.
Researchers from the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Space Research Institute have completed simulations of the Venetian atmosphere’s conduciveness to sustaining life, discovering that micromycetes (a type of microscopic fungi) can survive and thrive in Venus-like atmospheric conditions, where high levels of radiation and sharp jumps in temperature are the norm. Specifically, laboratory testing found that high doses of ionizing radiation do not lead to the fungi’s demise.
Scientists conducted their experiments on the basis of long-held scientific theories that microorganisms associated with mineral particles may be present in the upper layers of Venus’s atmosphere.
The researchers also performed research involving microorganisms found in the Arctic to simulate conditions on the surface of Mars – subjecting them to radiation and temperatures of -50 degrees Celsius. Here too, scientists found that the bacteria proved quite adaptable to survival.
Additionally, the Russian scientists studied soil bacteria present in the Mojave Desert, considered by many academics to be a terrestrial analogue to the kinds of microbial communities that may be found on Mars. The research showed that these micororganisms are highly resistant to a range of stress factors, such as cultivation temperature, pH levels, and the presence of salts and strong oxidizing agents.
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• On NASA’s 1976 Viking mission to Mars, NASA dispatched the ‘Labeled Release’ (LR) experiment to detect life on the red planet. On July 30, 1976, the LR returned its initial results from Mars with four positive results, supported by five varied controls, streamed down from the twin Viking spacecraft that landed some 4,000 miles apart. Engineer Gilbert Levin was the principal investigator for the LR experiment.
• According to Levin, the data curves signaled the detection of microbial respiration similar to those produced by LR tests of soils on Earth. But the Viking’s Molecular Analysis Experiment failed to detect organic matter, so NASA concluded that the LR had found a substance mimicking life, but not really life. Since then, none of NASA’s Mars landers have carried a life detection instrument to follow up on these initial results. Over the past 43 years, NASA has instead launched a series of missions to Mars to determine whether there was ever a habitat suitable for life, but not to detect life itself already there.
• NASA maintains that the search for alien life is among its highest priorities. Mars could even hold life that came via ejecta from the Earth . Laboratory experiments have proven that microbial species could survive the Martian environment. Indeed, microorganisms have been found to survive in naked space outside of the International Space Station.
• The process of detecting living microorganisms is elegantly simple. It is derived from the process that Louis Pasteur developed in 1864. This process is in daily use by health authorities around the world to examine potable water for microbial pathogens. The Viking LR sought to detect and monitor ongoing metabolism through a very simple and fail-proof indicator of living microorganisms. This strongly supports the reliability of the LR Mars data that microbial life was detected. Still, the results were debated and then abandoned.
• In addition to the direct evidence for life on Mars obtained by the Viking LR in 1976, subsequent missions to Mars have conducted experiments that support the existence of microbial life. The Phoenix and Curiosity landers found evidence that the ancient Martian environment may have been habitable. The CO2 in the Martian atmosphere should long ago have been converted to CO by the sun’s UV light; thus CO2 is being regenerated, possibly by microorganisms. Surface water sufficient to sustain microorganisms was found on Mars. Spectral analyses by Viking’s imaging system have even found lichen and green patches on Mars rocks.
• What is the evidence against the possibility of life on Mars? The astonishing fact is that there is none. Still, NASA has already announced that its 2020 Mars lander will not contain a life-detection test. Levin has formally proposed that the LR experiment be sent to Mars to confirm the existence of life. Moreover, the Chiral LR experiment could determine whether any life detected were similar to ours, or whether there was a separate genesis. A small, lightweight Chiral LR has already been designed. It could readily be turned into a flight instrument. Such an experiment on Mars might confirm that the Viking LR in 1976 did in fact discover microbial life. At a minimum, the study would produce guidance for NASA’s pursuit of life outside of the Earth.
• [Editor’s Note] So NASA discovered microbial life on Mars in 1976, but then immediately denied it. Then over the ensuing 43 years, NASA has not attempted to repeat its Labeled Release (LR) experiment to confirm life, but has instead maintained that life on Mars was still theoretical. Over the past four decades these experiments detecting life have certainly become more precise and sophisticated. Is NASA trying not to find life? Are they worried that using highly sophisticated instruments to search for microbial life might detect undeniable evidence of far more developed life on Mars? Is this just part of the ongoing cover-up by the Deep State of the advanced lifeforms that live on and underneath the surface of Mars, of which the elite NASA scientists and administrators are well aware?
On October 16th, NASA “refuted the explosive claim” by Gilbert Levin in an article published on the FoxNews.com website (see here). In an email to Fox News, NASA spokesman Allard Beutel said “the large majority of the scientific community does not believe the results of the Viking experiments alone rise to the level of extraordinary evidence.” “[W]e have yet to find signs of extraterrestrial life.”
Gilbert V. Levin
We humans can now peer back into the virtual origin of our universe. We have learned much about the laws of nature that control its seemingly infinite celestial bodies, their evolution, motions and possible fate. Yet, equally remarkable, we have no generally accepted information as to whether other life exists beyond us, or whether we are, as was Samuel Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, “alone, alone, all, all alone, alone on a wide wide sea!” We have made only one exploration to solve that primal mystery. I was fortunate to have participated in that historic adventure as experimenter of the Labeled Release (LR) life detection experiment on NASA’s spectacular Viking mission to Mars in 1976.
On July 30, 1976, the LR returned its initial results from Mars. Amazingly, they were positive. As the experiment progressed, a total of four positive results, supported by five varied controls, streamed down from the twin Viking spacecraft landed some 4,000 miles apart. The data curves signaled the detection of microbial respiration on the Red Planet. The curves from Mars were similar to those produced by LR tests of soils on Earth. It seemed we had answered that ultimate question.
When the Viking Molecular Analysis Experiment failed to detect organic matter, the essence of life, however, NASA concluded that the LR had found a substance mimicking life, but not life. Inexplicably, over the 43 years since Viking, none of NASA’s subsequent Mars landers has carried a life detection instrument to follow up on these exciting results. Instead the agency launched a series of missions to Mars to determine whether there was ever a habitat suitable for life and, if so, eventually to bring samples to Earth for biological examination.
NASA maintains the search for alien life among its highest priorities. On February 13, 2019, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said we might find microbial life on Mars. Our nation has now committed to sending astronauts to Mars. Any life there might threaten them, and us upon their return. Thus, the issue of life on Mars is now front and center.
NASA’s Allard Beutel
Life on Mars seemed a long shot. On the other hand, it would take a near miracle for Mars to be sterile. NASA scientist Chris McKay once said that Mars and Earth have been “swapping spit” for billions of years, meaning that, when either planet is hit by comets or large meteorites, some ejecta shoot into space. A tiny fraction of this material eventually lands on the other planet, perhaps infecting it with microbiological hitch-hikers. That some Earth microbial species could survive the Martian environment has been demonstrated in many laboratories. There are even reports of the survival of microorganisms exposed to naked space outside the International Space Station (ISS).
NASA’s reservation against a direct search for microorganisms ignores the simplicity of the task accomplished by Louis Pasteur in 1864. He allowed microbes to contaminate a hay-infusion broth, after which bubbles of their expired gas appeared. Prior to containing living microorganisms, no bubbles appeared. (Pasteur had earlier determined that heating, or pasteurizing, such a substance would kill the microbes.) This elegantly simple test, updated to substitute modern microbial nutrients with the hay-infusion products in Pasteur’s, is in daily use by health authorities around the world to examine potable water. Billions of people are thus protected against microbial pathogens.
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• As the US Navy is revealing information about encounters with UFOs, the question of life on other planets may warrant new examination from a scientific perspective.
• “There are possibly as many as about one Earth-like planet [orbiting] around every three Sun-like stars,” says Dr. Laird Close, Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at The University of Arizona. “We know that there are about 74 such Sun-like stars out to some 32 light years. That means… there should be on the order of 20-some, Earth-like planets within 32 light years of the Earth.”
• Dr. Close said that some planets in nearby star systems are near enough that we can use scientific instruments and methodology to detect whether or not they currently have or have ever had living microorganisms on them. Finding simple microbial life would “be a hallmark occasion for humanity,” says Dr. Close.
• The odds of finding intelligent life on other planets could be significantly lower than those of finding simple life. The likelihood is far less that an exoplanet would maintain a stable environment long enough for single-celled organisms to evolve into intelligent creatures, as it has done on this planet.
• Dr. Close relies on a book called Rare Earth by University of Washington geologist Peter Ward and astronomer Don Brownlee which requires that a habitable star system must have a ‘sun’ that is similar in size, type, and position in the galaxy to that of the Earth. “These, as we have seen, have been key to keeping the Earth stable for life for so long,” Dr. Close said.
• To make conditions on other planets even less likely to harbor life, Dr. Close further distinguishes the Earth by its having a Moon that stabilizes the spin axis of the Earth and helps create tide pools, and having Jupiter as a shield protecting the innermost planets from incoming impacts.
• When it’s all boiled down, Dr. Close gives the odds of finding another Earth-like planet in an Earth-like solar system is 1 in a million. With about 100 billion stars in our galaxy, and about 1.5 billion planets in the “habitable zone”. With 1 in a million odds of a planet with Earth-like conditions, and that leaves between 150 and 1,500 planets in the galaxy that might support life. Further qualifications like Earth’s hot core, tectonic plates, proper placement in the galaxy, and so on greatly reduce that number. “According to a strict interpretation of the Rare Earth hypothesis, you would probably only expect there to be three to 30 truly Earth-like photocopy planets in our galaxy right now,” reasons Dr. Close.
• [Editor’s Note] Dr. Close has found an obscure scientific study that allows him to narrow down the number of planets in the galaxy inhabited with lifeforms to three. He should be called Dr. Close Minded. First of all, mainstream science presumes that humans evolved from a primordial soup without any intervening assistance. Secondly, why is it that astrophysicists insist that the existence of extraterrestrial life depends on finding a planet that is just like our own, positioned in its solar system just like our own? Isn’t it more likely that a being will adapt to its planetary environment, or that the species is actually created for those conditions? It’s not a coincidence that the biology of a human being is naturally suited to this planet. Other intelligent beings surely inhabit planets naturally that are not particularly suited to humans. This narrow view of life in the galaxy simply supports the Deep State agenda of denying that intelligent extraterrestrial life exists anywhere else in the galaxy, and concealing that this planet has long maintained a widespread extraterrestrial presence, especially since World War II.
Most people are likely to have seen a fictionalized depiction of alien life by the time they reach adulthood, and these depictions are often caricatured. Science fiction novels and films, cartoons, video games, television series, and other media have told stories for quite some time of “little green men” visiting our planet for benevolent or malicious purposes. However, with the Pentagon ramping up its release of classified information about alleged naval encounters with UFOs to various government officials, the question of life on other planets may warrant new examination from a scientific perspective.
Optimistic View for Existence of Simple Life Forms
Dr. Laird Close
When we discuss life on other planets, microbial life may be more probable than it is exciting, but it’s a valid point of discussion. “There are possibly as many as about one Earth-like planet [orbiting] around every three Sun-like stars,” said Dr. Laird Close, Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at The University of Arizona. “We know that there are about 74 such Sun-like stars out to some 32 light years. That means if we optimistically keep the ratio of about 30 percent, there should be on the order of 20-some, Earth-like planets within 32 light years of the Earth.”
Dr. Close said that some planets in nearby star systems are near enough that we can use scientific instruments and methodology to detect whether or not they currently have or have ever had living microorganisms on them. Should we find that they do, it would be a good indicator that much of the universe is brimming with simple life.
“It’s a very exciting quest for science and if we discover this it will be a hallmark occasion for humanity,” he added.
The Rare Earth Theory and Intelligent Life
On the other hand, the odds of intelligent life on other planets could be significantly lower than those of simple life. This is partly because of the amount of time it took for single-celled organisms to evolve into intelligent creatures. The corresponding likelihood—or lack, thereof—of other planets maintaining stable environmental conditions for that long isn’t very optimistic.
Dr. Close cited a book called Rare Earth by two University of Washington scientists—geologist Peter Ward and astronomer Don Brownlee—that details the factors needed for intelligent life to spring up on Earth, according to the “Rare Earth Hypothesis.” “First of all, our Sun is in the right part of the galaxy,” Dr. Close said. “It is not too close to the crowded center, nor does it exist way out on the element-poor fringe of our galaxy. This seems to be an important factor.”
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