Life in a Vacuum

Is there life in space? (And no, that's not a rhetorical question about Democrats...)

Fans of extraterrestrial life may have been disappointed when internet-fed rumors of Martian life ended in a NASA press conference on soil composition.

But they can take solace in a newly popular theory that suggests the rest of space may teem with microbes.

This once-controversial notion holds that the universe is filled with the ingredients of microbial life, and that earthly life first came from the skies as comet dust or meteorites salted with hardy bacteria.

"Studies have shown that microbes can survive the shock levels of being launched into space," said Charles Cockell, a microbiologist at the Open University. "And as more and more organisms are discovered under extreme conditions, it's become more plausible that things could survive in space for the time it takes to go from one planet to another."

Not long ago, Cockell's claims would have been greeted with scientific derision. But as scientists learn more about Earth and space, the theory, which goes by the grandiose name of "galactic panspermia," seems less far-fetched.

It sounds like something that makes little sense, when you consider that all of us learned in school that life cannot survive in a vacuum. But let's face it, think about the living organisms that we have found here on earth. So called extremophiles that survive or thrive in conditions that may include extremely high or low temperatures, extremely high pressures, etc. Obviously, the existence of extremophiles here on earth would lead astrobiologists to consider the idea that if life can exist in extreme environments on earth, what is to say that such organisms cannot live or thrive off of earth as well?

Obviously, the science of all of this is still in its formative stages, and nothing can be proved or disproved. But clearly there are a lot of questions that remain in regards to the origins of life on Earth, and perhaps the further study of galactic panspermia will really provide us with scientific data on the origin of life.