Cometary Panspermia — Overcoming Cultural Constraints

The importance of distinguishing between hypotheses that are verified by a vast number of predictions and have not been falsified, and conjectures without any compelling evidence is of paramount importance for science educators to keep in mind. This article describes the trajectory of one such hypothesis. The concept of cometary panspermia has been developed over a period of four decades and evidence for it has straddled many scientific disciplines from astronomy, to geology, biology and epidemiology. With an ever-increasing number of predictions of this theory being verified, the question as to why it has not entered mainstream thinking is an intriguing one. I suggest that this resistance is connected with sociological considerations, including a deep cultural hostility to theories that appear to have a foreign or “alien” provenance.

Solar Cycle, Maunder Minimum and Pandemic Influenza

We explore the idea that influenza pandemics may arise from the transference of new virions (new sub-types of the influenza virus) of cosmic origin in general accord with the theory of cometary panspermia. Such a transfer process will be modulated by the sunspot cycle and through its role in affecting the interplanetary magnetic field configurations in the Earth’s vicinity. Transfers of virus could take place directly from comets or indirectly from a transient repository represented for instance by the Kordylewski if dust clouds at the L4 and L5 Lagrange libration points of the Earth-Moon system. In either case an active sun appears to be a perequisite for effective transfers. The long remission of influenza pandemics throughout the period 1645-1715, during the Maunder sunspot minimum, might be understood on the basis of our model.

Solar Cycle, Maunder Minimum and Pandemic Influenza

We explore the idea that influenza pandemics may arise from the transference of new virions (new sub-types of the influenza virus) of cosmic origin in general accord with the theory of cometary panspermia. Such a transfer process will be modulated by the sunspot cycle and through its role in affecting the interplanetary magnetic field configurations in the Earth’s vicinity. Transfers of virus could take place directly from comets or indirectly from a transient repository represented for instance by the Kordylewski if dust clouds at the L4 and L5 Lagrange libration points of the Earth-Moon system. In either case an active sun appears to be a perequisite for effective transfers. The long remission of influenza pandemics throughout the period 1645-1715, during the Maunder sunspot minimum, might be understood on the basis of our model.

PANSPERMIA: EVIDENCE FROM ASTRONOMY TO METEORITES

The theory of cometary panspermia is reviewed in relation to evidence from astronomy, biology and recent studies of meteorites. The spectroscopic signatures in interstellar material within our galaxy and in external galaxies that have been known for many years most plausibly represent evidence for the detritus of life existing on a cosmic scale. Such spectral features discovered in galaxies of high redshift points to life arising at a very early stage in the history of the Universe. Evidence of fossils of microscopic life forms in meteorites that have been discussed over several decades, and augmented recently with new data, reaffirms the case for cometary panspermia.