Direct from NASA - fossil life forms found on meteorite

If the following findings are true, then guess what everyone -- we're not alone in the universe! And Charlie Sheen can finally shut up and stop distracting me, because this is actually more fascinating than him.

Richard B. Hoover: Fossils of cyanobacteria found in meteorites

(Credit: Journal of Cosmology)

In the March edition of the Journal of Cosmology, a NASA scientist unveiled his recent findings involving a meteorite that made its way through to space to land here on Earth - carrying with it, *DRUM ROLL *, fossilized life forms!

NASA Astrobiologist Dr. Richard B. Hoover of Marshall Space Flight Center, has traveled to remote areas in Antarctica, Siberia, and Alaska, and others, for his decade long career, gathering and studying meteorites. Hoover writes that the latest findings in his study focus on a very rare class of meteorites, called CI1 carbonaceous chondrites. Only nine such meteorites are known to exist on Earth.

Though the study is likely to upset people, cause excitement and controversy all over the place, Hoover is convinced that his findings reveal true fossil evidence of bacterial life within these meteorites. Fossils, the remains of living organisms from their parent comets, moons and other astral bodies, were discovered inside the meteorites once they were taken apart. Based on these findings, Hoover believes that life is broadly distributed throughout the universe. So if these are really fossils, then what kind of life forms are they?



Similar in size and overall structure to the giant bacterium Titanospirillum velox



Actually, some of the fossils are very similar to our bacterial life forms while others are completly strange and unrecognizable. Hoover told FOXNEWS.com, “The exciting thing is that they are in many cases recognizable and can be associated very closely with the generic species here on earth. There are some that are just very strange and don’t look like anything that I’ve been able to identify, and I’ve shown them to many other experts that have also come up stumped.”

Dr. David Marais, an astrobiologist with NASA’s AMES Research Center says he’s not ready to jump onto the bandwagon just yet. Evidence like this has come up before and was proven false. One hundred experts and over five thousand scientists have scrutinize the study and commented on the findings alongside the article. 

Dr. Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the SETI Institute, says there is a lot of caution toward believing in the claims. If found to be true, the implications would be change science and astronomy on a huge, huge scale.

Shostak guessed that, “Maybe life was seeded on earth -- it developed on comets for example, and just landed here when these things were hitting the very early Earth. It would suggest, well, life didn’t really begin on the Earth, it began as the solar system was forming.”

Hoover is hardly worried about the quick-coming controversy but welcomes other explanations. He says, “If someone can explain how it is possible to have a biological remain that has no nitrogen, or nitrogen below the detect ability limits that I have, in a time period as short as 150 years, then I would be very interested in hearing that."