Mission to search for alien life in outer atmosphere (more aliens in the news?)

[irishspirit]

n science fiction films the search for aliens involves travelling across the galaxy to planets millions of miles away.

But scientists believe they could be close to discovering alien life forms much closer to home – on the outer fringes of Earth's atmosphere.

British scientists, working with the European Space Agency, will this week launch a balloon carrying instruments to search the stratosphere for bacteria and other microorganisms.

They believe there could be species capable of surviving in the high levels of radiation, extreme cold and near vacuum found on the edge of space.

The organisms could be entirely new to science and may even have been brought here from outer space by hitching a ride on asteroids or comets.

If they succeed, it would be the first time alien life had been captured and would lend substantial weight to theories that all life on Earth was brought here from elsewhere in the galaxy.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/8038639/Mission-to-search-for-alien-life-in-outer-atmosphere.html

[Atlas]

Researchers from the University of Sheffield in England reported that tiny organisms that came back aboard a balloon sent high into the stratosphere are too big to have floated up from the surface of our planet.

“In the absence of a mechanism by which large particles like these can be transported to the stratosphere we can only conclude that the biological entities originated from space," Dr. Milton Wainwright, astrobiology professor at the university, said in a written statement. "Our conclusion then is that life is continually arriving to Earth from space, life is not restricted to this planet and it almost certainly did not originate here.”

But other scientists aren't so sure. "I'm very skeptical," Dr. Seth Shostak, senior astronomer with the SETI Institute, told The Huffington Post in an email. "This claim has been made before, and dismissed as terrestrial contamination."

The researchers said they took precautions to avoid picking up bits of terrestrial life during the experiment. Microscope stubs on the balloon were exposed to the atmosphere only at altitudes of 22 to 27 kilometers (13.7 to 16.8 miles). They acknowledged that there could be some mechanism for transporting large particles high into the atmosphere. But since no such mechanism has been discovered, they said, the next likely explanation is that the "diatoms" come from space.

The new findings were published in the Journal of Cosmology -PDF (http://journalofcosmology.com/JOC22/milton_diatom.pdf)- which itself has been viewed skeptically by some scientists. Dr. Sean Carroll, an astrophysicist at Caltech, told The Huffington Post in an email that it "is not a serious journal."

“If life does continue to arrive from space then we have to completely change our view of biology and evolution,” Wainwright said.

(source (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/20/alien-life-discovered-earth-stratosphere_n_3955357.html))