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The Beginnings of Life as a Cosmic Phenomenon
N.C. Wickramasinghe
Buckingham Centre for Astrobiology, Buckingham University, Buckingham, UK;
Institute for the Study of Panspermia and Astroeconomics, Gifu, Japan
Abstract: The emerging consensus that comets carry the biochemical seeds of life
coincides with the first step that was reached as early as 1977 in the historical
development of the Hoyle-Wickramasinghe theory of cosmic life.
Keywords: Comets, prebiotic molecules, primordial soup, Hoyle-Wickramasinghe
panspermia
The earliest beginnings of the Hoyle-Wickramasinghe theory of cosmic life are clearly
recorded in a series of papers published in high profile journals during 1974-1977. Our
first paper in the series appeared in the journal Nature arguing for organic polymers in
the form of polyoxymethylene distributed throughout interstellar space (1). This paper
was followed by a long sequence of publications in which we explored various abiotic
processes by which the evolution of interstellar molecules into prebiotic structures may
take place (2,3,4).
In 1975 Vanysek and the present writer (5) first proposed the existence of
polyoxymethylene polymers in comets, thus challenging the hallowed Whipple dirty
snowball theory of comets (6). Organic structures related to polyoxymethylene polymers
have now been identified in comet 67P/C-G, but the modern discoverers have not thought
it necessary to acknowledge our earlier discussions (7).
Historically, we next discussed mechanisms by which the evolution of polyformaldehyde
(or polyoxymethylene) into biologically relevant molecular structures could take place. In
one such attempt we discussed the development of molecular complexity that may have
occurred within clumps of loosely adhered interstellar organic polymers (4). We also
discussed the possibility of chains of sugar molecules – cellulose and polysaccharides
forming in molecular outflows from stars.
Arguing further that comets, which condensed in the outer regions of the solar system,
mopped up prebiotic molecules from interstellar space (8), we wrote thus in 1978
(Lifecloud, p.125):
“For the origin of life on our planet, therefore, all that was needed was a primitive
atmosphere which allowed the soft landing of small cometary bodies carrying interstellar
prebiotic molecules. We know that such soft landings of meteorites occur today. In the
beginning the solar system would have picked up considerable quantities of cometary-
type debris from the parent cloud as it carried out an oscillatory movement within the
cloud......”
So interstellar prebiotics, delivered by comets to Earth to make up the canonical
primordial soup, was precisely the position we had arrived at in 1978. At this time such a
position was considered to be outrageously contentious, even heretical. It is ironical that
precisely the same position is now being adopted by conventional science (and reported
in the popular media) seemingly oblivious of its early precedents.
In the development of our own thinking beyond 1978 it was a failure to understand how
the exceedingly specific arrangements of the monomers – such as amino acids – into long
chain polymers as in enzymes, or nucleotide bases into DNA, that led us to challenge the
holiest of holy grails in biology – the theory of the Earth-bound primordial soup. The
only way this theory can be defended, it seemed to us, was to assert that there is some
deep principle of physics that drives inorganic systems to living systems. If such a
principle existed it has been our contention that it should have long since been discovered
(9,10).
The alternative scenario we explored was that life at a microbial and genetic level is a
truly cosmic phenomenon. Comets carry not just the chemical building blocks of life but
fully-fledged bacterial life. They serve as the incubators and transporters of cosmic life.
In such a picture complex organic molecules that were recently detected in comets as
well as in interstellar space are mainly the result of the break-down of biological cells, a
process which occurs naturally in the course of panspermic transport of microorganisms
between different galactic habitats.
In conclusion we note that to acknowledge that the molecular seeds of life (prebiotic
molecules) are carried in comets (7) is the first step that retraces our own progress
towards the final goal of life being a cosmic phenomenon.
References
1. Wickramasinghe, N.C., 1974. Formaldehyde polymers in interstellar space, Nature,
252, 462-463
2. Hoyle, F. and Wickramasinghe, N.C., 1978. Calculations of infrared fluxes from
galactic sources for a polysaccharide model, Astrophys.Sp.Sci., 53, 489- 505
2
3. Hoyle, F. and Wickramasinghe, N.C., 1977. Identification of the 2200A interstellar
absorption feature, Nature, 270, 323-324
4. Hoyle, F. and Wickramasinghe, N.C., 1976. Primitive grain clumps and organic
compounds in carbonaceous chondrites, Nature 264, 45-46
5. Vanysek, V. and Wickramasinghe, N.C., 1975. Formaldehyde polymers in comets,
Astrophys.Sp.Sci., 33, L19-28
6. Mendis, D.A. and Wickramasinghe, N.C., 1975. Composition of cometary dust: the
case against silicates, Astrophys.Sp.Sci., 37, L13-16
7. Le Roy L., Bardyn, A., Briois, C. et al, 2015. COSIMA calibration for the detection
and characterization of the cometary solid organic matter, Planetary and Space Science,
105, 1-25
8. Hoyle, F. and Wickramasinghe, N.C., 1978. Lifecloud, J.M.Dent & Sons, Lond.
9. Hoyle, F. and Wickramasinghe, N.C., 1982. Evolution from Space, J.M.Dent & Sons,
Lond.
10. Wickramasinghe, C. (ed.), 2015. Vindication of Cosmic Biology, World Scientific
Press, Singapore
