Moral Obligation' to Seed Universe with Life 9 February 2010, by Lisa Zyga

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Professor: We have a 'moral obligation' to seed universe with life 9 February 2010, by Lisa Zyga

life to other solar systems which can be transformed via microbial activity, thereby preparing these worlds to develop and sustain complex life,” Mautner explained to PhysOrg.com. “Securing that future for life can give our human existence a cosmic purpose.”

As Mautner explains in his study published in an

upcoming issue of the Journal of Cosmology, the strategy is to deposit an array of primitive Directed panspermia missions could target interstellar clouds such as the Rho Ophiuchus cloud complex organisms on potentially fertile planets and located about 500 light-years away. This view spans protoplanets throughout the universe. Like the about five light-years across. The false-color image is earliest life on Earth, organisms such as taken from the Spitzer Space Telescope. Credit: NASA. cyanobacteria could seed other planets, digest toxic gases (such as ammonia and carbon dioxide on early Earth) and release products such as oxygen which promote the evolution of more (PhysOrg.com) -- Eventually, the day will come complex species. To increase their chances of when life on Earth ends. Whether that’s tomorrow success, the microbial payloads should contain a or five billion years from now, whether by nuclear variety of organisms with various environmental war, climate change, or the Sun burning up its fuel, tolerances, and hardy multicellular organisms such the last living cell on Earth will one day wither and as rotifer eggs to jumpstart higher evolution. These die. But that doesn’t mean that all is lost. What if organisms may be captured into asteroids and we had the chance to sow the seeds of terrestrial comets in the newly forming solar systems and life throughout the universe, to settle young planets transported from there by impacts to planets as within developing solar systems many light-years their host environments develop. away, and thus give our long evolutionary line the chance to continue indefinitely? Mautner has identified potential breeding grounds, which include extrasolar planets, accretion disks According to Michael Mautner, Research Professor surrounding young stars that hold the gas and dust of Chemistry at Virginia Commonwealth University, of future planets, and - at an even earlier stage - seeding the universe with life is not just an option, interstellar clouds that hold the materials to create it’s our moral obligation. As members of this stars. He explains that the Kepler mission may planet’s menagerie, and a consequence of nearly identify hundreds of biocompatible extrasolar 4 billion years of evolution, humans have a planets, and astronomers are already aware of purpose to propagate life. After all, whatever else several accretion disks and interstellar clouds that life is, it necessarily possesses an incessant drive could serve as targets. These potential habitats for self-perpetuation. And the idea isn’t just range in distance from a few light-years to 500 or fantasy: Mautner says that “directed panspermia” more light-years away. missions can be accomplished with present technology. To transport the microorganisms, Mautner proposes using sail-ships. These ships offer a low- “We have a moral obligation to plan for the cost transportation method with solar sails, which propagation of life, and even the transfer of human can achieve high velocities using the radiation

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pressure from light. The microorganisms could be continue existing beyond our home planet. Using bundled in tiny capsules, each containing about techniques from astroecology based on the energy 100,000 microorganisms and weighing 0.1 output of stars, he calculates that the amount of micrograms. Mautner predicts that the most sustainable life can be significant in other challenging part of the process would be the neighborhoods of the universe. Of course, it’s precise aiming required in order for a mission to impossible to know for sure how everything will turn arrive at its target destination after hundreds of out after we’re long gone. thousands, or even millions, of years of travel. “May life last indefinitely?” he writes. “The Accounting for the difficulties of each of the steps habitable lifetime of the galaxy may depend on the involved, Mautner has calculated how many dark matter and energy. These forces may need to microbial capsules would be needed to ensure a be observed for many more eons to predict their reasonable probability of success. He concludes future behaviour. During those cosmological times that a few hundred tons of microbial biomass “can our descendants may understand nature more seed dozens of new solar systems in an interstellar deeply and seek to extend life indefinitely.” cloud with life for eons.” With launch costs of $10,000/kg, this amount of biomass would cost More information: Michael N. Mautner. “Seeding about $1 billion to launch. If we can aim precisely at the Universe with Life: Securing Our Cosmological planets in nearby solar systems, the mission would Future.” Journal of Cosmology, 2010, Vol. 5. require significantly fewer capsules, smaller journalofcosmology.com/SearchForLife111.html biomass, and lower costs. Mautner predicts that, while the technology is currently available, such an Book: “Seeding the Universe with Life: Securing initiative will be easier to implement as space Our Cosmological Future” (available at infrastructure develops and launch costs decrease. amazon.com and ebookmall.com)

As Mautner notes, several scientists have Websites: previously proposed ways to seed planets (notably, Directed panspermia and the Society for Life in Venus and Mars) in our own solar system with Space (SOLIS): www.panspermia-society.com microorganisms in order to alter the atmosphere Astroecology and the future of life: www.Astro- and possibly make them habitable for humans. Ecology.com Also, some theories suggest that, on Earth, life- Ethical aspects: www.astroethics.com supporting nutrients and materials - or even life itself - may have come from somewhere else in the Contact: info[at]solis1.com universe, arriving here on meteors, asteroids, and comets. In a sense, Mautner’s proposal would simply be helping life’s planet-hopping journey © 2010 PhysOrg.com continue.

But, some critics might ask, what if extraterrestrial life already exists somewhere else, and we infect it with our own invasive genetic material? First of all, Mautner explains that we can minimize these chances by targeting very primitive locations where life could not have evolved yet. In addition, he argues that, since extraterrestrial life is not currently known to exist, our first concern should be with preserving our family of organic gene/protein life that we know exists.

In the long term, Mautner is hopeful that life can

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