Britain to Search for Alien Life in Earth's Atmosphere


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British researchers from Cranfield University, in cooperation with the European Space Agency, plan to launch a balloon this week from the Esrange Space Center in Kiruna, the northernmost city in Sweden, with on-board instruments that will search for non-Earth bacteria and micro-organisms.

Team leader and electronic engineer Clara Juanes-Vallejo spoke to AOL News from above the Arctic Circle, where she and her team were waiting for the launch of the Cranfield Astrobiological Stratospheric Sampling Experiment, or CASS-E.

"We have an interest in looking for life in extreme environments, like the planet Mars, because if we can find life in a harsh environment, like Earth's stratosphere, then we might be able to find life on Mars," Juanes-Vallejo said.

"In the stratosphere, it's minus-90 degrees Celsius, and a near-vacuum, in addition to extreme radiation, where there's no atmosphere to protect you. If we find very strange life up there, we can say it's not ours."

And such a discovery would support the theory that life on Earth came from somewhere else in the cosmos.

Many scientists believe life may have arrived on Earth in any number of ways: piggy-backing a ride on comets, asteroids or, as Juanes-Vallejo points out, windfalling.

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Makes sense. Hasn't anyone tried this before?

Yeah you would think they would have tried it before, seems kind of obvious. Maybe it has been done in the past but instruments weren't advanced enough?

Anyway hope they find something, would be awesome.

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Think of how many frozen comets/astroids had to hit the Earth in its infancy to account for all of the water we currently have. Was life delivered on one of them and extremely rare or millions of them and quite common in the universe? This question needs answered.

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I beg to differ

Any alien life found in our outer atmosphere could only get here through the voids and absolute zero temperatures of space. It would have to be able to survive for centuries (or more) on a cold, hard rock. I just can't see that happening.

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Any alien life found in our outer atmosphere could only get here through the voids and absolute zero temperatures of space. It would have to be able to survive for centuries (or more) on a cold, hard rock. I just can't see that happening.

True. Or perhaps it could enter a hibernation type state in between star systems and revive once it enters the "warm" zone when near our star..

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