Cosmic phenomenon in tune w/Buddhist & Vedic philosophy

[Guest guest]

Prof. Chandra Wickramasinghe : "the idea of life being a cosmic

phenomenon is fully in tune with Buddhist as well as Vedic philosophy."

 

Prof. Chandra Wickramasinghe - the man who asserted: "Life did not

start here on earth but in space," has retired

Thu, 2006-10-26 03:55

By Walter Jayawardhana

 

Chandra Wickramasinghe the scientist has been always a poet at

heart. As a young boy growing up in his native Sri Lanka he looked up

at the twinkling canopy of the tropical night sky and wrote : Prof.

Chandra Wickramasinghe : "the idea of life being a cosmic phenomenon

is fully in tune with Buddhist as well as Vedic philosophy."

Amongst the myriad stars

I stand alone

and wonder how much life

and love there was tonight

 

He wrote it at the age of 15.

 

>From his childhood he has mysteriously felt connected with the

universe. Being a Buddhist the idea of life having a cosmic connection

was in tune with his philosophy.

 

Some years ago he told me, "the idea of life being a cosmic

phenomenon is fully in tune with Buddhist as well as Vedic philosophy.

Ancient Buddhist texts described inhabited circling distant suns,

collections of suns to form greater world systems , collections of world

systems and so on. I have surely been inspired by these philosophies

throughout my scientific studies."

 

A graduate of the University of Ceylon. He later joined the Cambridge

University on a Commonwealth scholarship and did his PhD under the

late Sir Fred Hoyle, one of the best astronomers of the 20th century. He

was later awarded the university's highest doctorate for science, the

prestigious Scd. He was decorated by the President of Sri Lanka with

the title "Vidya Jothi". He came to Cardiff University in Wales in 1973

and organized a new department of astronomy that became one of the

top astronomy centers in Europe. Prof. Chandra Wickramasinghe and

the late Sir Fred Hoyle were later awarded the Dag Hammarskjöld Gold

medal for Science

After thirty 33 years of work as the professor of astronomy and

mathematics, Chandra Wickramasinghe is the world's leading exponent

of the theory known as panspermia- the science that teaches earth and

other planets in the universe may have been seeded for life by

microorganisms carrying comets.

 

Before Chandra Wickremesinghe scientists thought that huge obscuring

clouds in deep space like the horse head nebula were made up of ice

particles. But his untiring research showed the particles were mainly

made of carbon- a form of a substance that was connected with life- a

freeze dried dormant bacteria.

 

Wickramasinghe calls them our genetic ancestors. When he first came

out with this theory, extremely harsh criticism was leveled against him.

Some even called the theory pseudo- science. Chandra

Wickramasinghe thinks if there was no Sir Fred Hoyle, one of the

greatest astronomers of the last century, stood by him his theory would

have certainly been put out of existence. He and the late Fred Hoyle

were later awarded the Dag Hammarskjöld Gold medal for Science.

 

Chandra Wickramasinghe has made his theory of panspermia the

mainstream in the new science of astrobiology - a link between

astronomy and biology.

 

To celebrate his new theories, the Cardiff university was holding a

scientific seminar to discuss the new view of the world of science that

boldly said that life did not start in a primordial soup spontaneously here

on earth as believed earlier but it started 4000 million years ago on

comets and traveled through space to earth and countless other

planets. With the participation of nearly 40 scientists from all over the

world the seminar was held from September 5 entitled, Unraveling of Our

Cosmic Ancestry.

 

Though retiring as the Professor at the age of 67 he will continue to

serve as the director of Cardiff Center for astrobiology.

 

The following is an email interview I did from California with him in Cardiff

on the eve of his retirement:

 

Question: You are retiring as a Professor at the University of Cardiff this

September. What was the most significant contribution you could make

to the progress of science during the time you served as the professor

of applied mathematics and astronomy since you came to this

university in 1973?

 

Answer: I played a key role in establishing a connection between

astronomy and biology. My work in the 1980's showed for the first time

that cosmic dust had properties that resembled the properties of living

material and their degradation products.

 

Question: When you were at Cambridge, before coming here, your

Pioneering research was on interstellar dust. What is the significance of

those theories on interstellar dust?

 

Answer: My PhD thesis and the dissertation on which I was awarded a

Fellowship at Jesus College was entitled: "On graphite particles as

interstellar grains" I think I was largely responsible for astronomers

moving away from the old idea that cosmic dust consisted of ice

particles that were formed in space to the idea that they condensed in

much denser regions in the environs of stars. I also transformed showed

that interstellar dust played a key role in controlling astrophysical

processes.

 

Question: Once when you were in California, you told me that

you and some Indian team of scientists using balloons had collected

from the tropopause , or the upper atmosphere microorganisms that had

come from outer space and your estimate was that one third of a tonne

of cometary microorganisms enter the earth's atmosphere every year.

What are these micro organisms ?

 

Answer: I think that life arrived at the Earth 3800 million years ago with

the impacts of comets. If comets brought the first life to Earth the

process of comets introducing primitive life must continue even to the

present day. The Indian balloon experiment gave us the first direct

indication that this may be happening. The particles collected in the

stratosphere included clumps of bacteria, which we know are viable

(living), but so far we have not been able to culture most of them.

 

Question: At that time you said the scientists are going to do detailed

analysis of these microorganisms and look in to their DNA. Have you

looked into the DNA now? Are they different from the microorganism

you find on earth? Can you compare them?

 

Answer: A few types of bacteria that were grown from the air samples

by Milton Wainwright in Sheffield were found to be similar to known

terrestrial counterparts, so contamination from the Earth is always an

issue. The clumps of bacteria that we could not culture or sequence

DNA we think must have come from space.

 

Question: If they came from outer space from where did they Actually

come and how? How did they survive in the deadly outer space with all

those killer rays?

 

Answer: They came from comets. When the comets formed at the time

of the birth of the solar system they would have included a very small

component of viable bacteria from the cloud from which our planetary

system condensed.

 

These bacteria then grow exponentially in numbers in the liquid interior

regions of comets. When comets come into the inner regions of the

solar system their surfaces are peeled away, and the bacteria particles

escape into the cometary tails.

 

Whenever the Earth crosses trails of cometary debris, biological

particles would enter the Earth's atmosphere. Not all the biological

particles survive entry of course, but a fraction must do. I don't think

survival in the so-called harsh conditions of space is an issue any more.

Bacteria are found to be exceedingly space-hardy.

 

Question: Recently, the Kerala scientist Dr. Godfrey Louis and his

research assistant Santhosh Kumar said samples of red rain that fell

across the state of Kerala in India have been found to contain

microscopic red cells of unknown origin . What's the relevance of this

claim to your theory of panspermia? Could you also tell something

about their latest conclusions?Dr. Godfrey Louis said samples of red

rain that fell across the state of Kerala in India have been found to

contain microscopic red cells of unknown origin .

Answer: If these red cells came from a comet, then it would surely be

conclusive proof of cometary panspermia. The evidence to me suggests

that a small injection of red rain cells from comets took place in July

2001, and this was somehow amplified in the clouds of our atmosphere.

This is the only way I can understand the intermittent showers over

several weeks, and the localization around Kerala. Incidentally this

phenomenon was repeated in this present year July 2006, showing a 5-

year cycle of incident particles.

 

Question: We heard that samples of this red rain was also sent io

Cardiff for testing. What did you find? Could these also be aliens

showering on earth after traveling on a comet?

 

Answer: I think more work needs to be done, but this could well be the

smoking gun for panspermia.

 

Question: It was claimed in news reports that these microorganisms

lacked DNA. Then how did it replicate?

 

Answer: We also have had difficulty extracting DNA from these

exceedingly tough red-rain cells. There are however some staining tests

that show positive for DNA, but this could be ambiguous. Again, we

need to extract and amplify DNA, which we have not yet done.

 

Question: It was also claimed in news reports that the strange Cells

would reproduce in 600 degrees Fahrenheit while the known maximum

limit of heat in water for any life to survive is only 250 degrees of

Fahrenheit. Are they bacteria adapted to the harsh conditions of space?

Is this going to be the first concrete evidence for your panspermia

theory?

 

Answer: These are Godfrey's claims. I think these claims have to be

tested independently and if they are verified, they surely would be a

confirmation of an alien bug.

 

Question: What did you find out from NASA's star dust program? Were

you able to test some samples from that program?

 

Answer: I have not had access to these samples. But the collection

procedure would not have recovered microbes in tact. The organic

residues found in the aerogel can be interpreted as destruction products

of bacteria.

 

Question: If you think the intelligent man ultimately evolved out of these

unearthly microorganisms from outer space couldn't those same spores

of life contributed to intelligent life elsewhere in the universe?

 

Answer: Yes, I would agree. The universe must be teeming with life, and

with intelligence as well.

 

Question: So, if we are to meet a visitor from space one day, who has

mastered time traveling do you think that visitor would look very much

different from man?

 

Answer: He she or it would share much of our genetic heritage. Our

genes, and the genes for all life were derived from a much bigger cosmic

system. So a similarity of life forms across the universe is inevitable.

 

Question: Do you think based on the studies of DNA from outer space

that the visitor from outer space would be a compassionate one or a one

who would be planning to devour us for protein.

 

Answer: I think if a visitor from space had developed the technologies to

travel to us, that visitor must come from a "culture" where survival over

millennia and coexistence had evolved as prime values. Otherwise they

would have blown themselves out in a matter of tens of thousands of

years, as our civilization may well be heading to do.

 

Question: Would it be a carbon based life or a silicone based life?

 

Answer: The only life we know of is Carbon based, so I would like to

stick to that as the only life form to discuss.

 

Question: A US suspense and mystery writer has written a novel

depicting a space visitor entering our bodies and destroying us. How

could such barbaric practice be possible among an advanced civilization

who could conquer space and time?

 

Answer: I think that is beyond belief!

 

Question: Do you think there are any chances of contacting an

intelligent civilization in the near future?

 

Answer: I would give it 3 decades, no more before contact is made.

 

Question: What benefits such a contact could bring to this world?

 

Answer: I hope that it would lead to a world view in which tribal and

International conflicts cease to exist.

 

Question: What are the chances that our civilization could come to an

end before all that by a nuclear war or the collision of earth with an

asteroid or a comet?

 

Answer: Yes, comet and asteroid impacts may present a very long-term

threat to our civilization, possibly over a timescale of a few thousand

years. But on a much shorter timescale nuclear wars could pose the

most serious threat. The rate at which we are amassing lethal weapons

is certainly very disturbing.

 

- Asian Tribune -

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