Life came from space? Balloon may have answers

By T. Lalith Singh

HYDERABAD, DEC. 1. The nation's scientific community has congregated here to witness the flight of a special balloon, filled with neon imported from the United States, which will be collecting 15 aseptic air samples at different altitudes ranging between 10 km and 35 km. Bacterium from these samples will be isolated in a fresh attempt to unravel the mysteries of life.

The first balloon launched from the TIFR in April 1999 returned with an air sample from the stratosphere. What spurred the fancy of the scientific community the world over were recent experiments by the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) on samples collected during the 1999 flight - they could successfully isolate six identical clones of bacterium from them. This finding is likely to provide an impetus to theories which suggest that life may have been seeded on Earth by living organisms that migrated here from space.

The team of Dr. S. Shivaji, an expert in unusual bacteria, and Dr. G.S.Reddy, (both from CCMB), concluded that the strain obtained from the upper atmosphere behaved differently in several properties from ``all the known strains of this particular micro- organism species''. The conclusions were arrived at after studying the samples for their morphological, biochemical and molecular biological characteristics.

The scientists had obviously named the new strain of bacterium, but are unwilling to disclose the name as well as details of how the new strain differed from the known species, since they have submitted their findings to an international science journal recently. ``We would reveal the name and other characteristics once the paper is published,'' Dr. Pushpa Bhargava, former CCMB director, who is playing a key role in the project along with noted astro-physicist, Dr. Jayant Narlikar, said. Speaking to The Hindu, all he was willing to say, for now, was that ``the difference pertained to growth characteristics, chemistry, utilisation of substrates and production of metabolites... It is tempting to speculate that the micro-organisms collected by us are a gift of space. Though their terrestrial origin seems unlikely, we cannot rule it out.''

The scientists found it interesting that though the ``upper atmosphere organisms belonged to already-known terrestrial species, the strains behaved differently in respect of a number of important properties''. The second balloon launch, slated this week, is expected to provide newer insights, according to scientists working on the project funded by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

Scientists from the CCMB, the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics headed by Prof. Jayant Narlikar, the TIFR, and Dr. Bhargava, are actively associated with the project. The flight carrying the automated remote control instrumentation has been designed by Dr. P. Rajaratnam of the ISRO.

With weather playing spoilsport, the experts gathered here are waiting for the next launch opportunity. ``We need a clear weather prevailing over a radius of about 200 km for making the flight. Every thing is in place and we are just waiting for the weather to turn favourable,'' Dr. Bhargava said. The findings made by the Indian scientists hold the promise of supporting theories - initially propounded by Nobel Laureate, S. A. Arrhenius and supported by Francis Crick - on `pan spermia', that life might have got seeded on Earth by living organisms from space. The later works in this direction were taken up by Prof. Fred Hoyle and Dr. Chandra Wickramsinghe, who proposed that Earth may be continuously receiving micro-organisms from space.

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