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Soaring towards the Stratosphere a balloon carrying an ambitious marketing message.
And it's Sheffield University Scientists who used the same kit to filter the air 15 miles
up and found life that they believe came from outer space.
Organisms just 2 or 3 times the width of a hair with complex structures that may allow
them to eat, breathe and move in their alien world.
The scientists say it's the first time they've found direct evidence of extra-terrestrial
lifeforms so close to home.
This is a completely different view of biology.
What this says is that life did not originate on this Planet.
It originated in space.
That it's coming in from space all the time.
As I walk out to go and get my dinner tonight.
And when I walk out of the building there's lifeforms coming.
Whether they are alive or not is a mute issue but there's biology coming from space.
The specially designed balloon was launched near Cheshire during the recent Perseid Meteor
shower.
Special microscopes studs were used to sift for particles.
They captured a fragment of a very simple organism called a Diatom, a form of algae.
But other scientists are skeptical.
They say that they don't think it's contamination from the Earth
because there were no large volcanic eruptions which could have blown such a material up
into the space....
into the upper atmosphere in the last few months.
But one thing that climatologists are realising is that small volcanoes have a much more profound
and far-reaching effect than they had thought.
So I think, on balance, I'd say that thing looks more like it's from Earth than from
space.
The Sheffield Scientists say the discovery strengthens the theory that life on Earth
may have been seeded by hitch-hiking aliens on a passing space rock.
The chemical signatures of the bugs will be analysed shortly to confirm they really are
extra-terrestrial.
If so, the textbooks on Evolution may have to be re-written.