|
Young World
From outer space?
VISALAKSHI RAMANI
|
The next time you catch a cold or suffer from the flu, look up at the sky. Your answer may lie there.
|
The cold and ‘flu we suffer from may not be passed on to us by our visiting neighbours but by visitors from outer space — the comets. Many deadly diseases might have arrived in the same way as the earth is ravaged every time a comet appears.
This controversial thesis is put forward by two eminent astronomers from the U. K., Prof. Chandra Wickramasinghe and Sir Fred Hoyle. They claim that the dust from outer space contains minute living organism which thrive and multiply in the earth’s friendly atmosphere to cause widespread diseases.
The comets are made up of interstellar dust mixed with ice and frozen gases. When a comet visits our solar system some of its dust enters the earth’s atmosphere.
The minute living organisms grow, spread and cause diseases. Two visits by the Halley ’s Comet (which orbits around the sun in about 75 and 78 years) coincided with the spread of Asian flu. The debris from the comet could have very well caused this large-scale outbreak of diseases.
In the atmosphere
According to WHO, small pox has been completely eradicated from the earth. But it might by caused again by another comet which might return after a few centuries.
The outbreak of the epidemic is not from one place to the neighbouring place but at random places at the same time, as though caused by floating organism drifting through the atmosphere.
This theory’s credibility gained momentum only in 1986. The space probes flying close to Halley’s Comet revealed that the gases given out by the comet contained carbon and hydrogen — the two elements vital for life. Also fragments of the molecules of the type produced by living things were discovered. The core of the comet was coated with a layer of some carbon containing substance.
Further investigations and a closer look at the visiting comets may uphold this study.
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Young World
|
